


the day i take your hand

by QueenOfCarrotFlowers



Series: Carrot's Romance Fics [6]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Motorcycles, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, background Canady/Holdo, background finnhux, mentions of past finnrey, technically pre-apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:33:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22641889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers
Summary: Since her great-aunt Kira died eight years ago, Rey is used to being alone. She goes to work, rides her motorcycle to the beach, tends to her bees and chickens, and tries not to think too hard about the family that abandoned her as a child. Her small life is upended when Ben Solo, missing on a space mission for almost seventy years, arrives home to discover that everyone he knew and loved is gone. As he comes to terms with what is lost and what could be, Rey has to decide if she will continue searching for her long-lost family, or if she will choose to take a hand that will keep her closer to home - Ben's hand.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Carrot's Romance Fics [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801348
Comments: 131
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 11/3/2020 - updates will continue beginning on Sunday, January 17th, 2021, and will continue weekly until the fic is completely.
> 
> This is a light sci-fi romance, based on the concept of the [Queen song 39](https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNTLzl-XwX0JkF7dJ3ncyr3ddpRkpA%3A1581290867108&ei=c5VAXoikBueHytMP8d6zyAc&q=queen+39+lyrics&oq=queen+3&gs_l=psy-ab.3.1.35i39j0l9.4759603.4763128..4765225...2.4..0.114.800.7j2......0....1..gws-wiz.....10..0i71j0i67j0i131j35i362i39j0i273j0i131i273j0i22i30.YiuVzgT0M54). It will be a slow burn - Rey and Ben will end up together eventually, but it will take a while. This is about 3/4 finished (and the ending is written), I plan to post one chapter a week, on Sunday, until it's complete; I anticipate around ten to twelve chapters total and I will update the number as soon as I know for sure. It will be chapter 3 or 4 before Ben shows up in person, please be patient!
> 
> Please note that Ben and Rey are not related by blood - Rey is the granddaughter of Kira's sister - but if you are very sensitive to incest this story may squick you out and you might be better off not reading it.
> 
> One million belated thanks to flypaper_brain for her constant encouragement and mad beta skills on this story!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Tomorrow_

Rey pulls her sweater close around her shoulders and shivers in the breeze. The glare of the setting sun off the ocean hurts her eyes, makes her squint, but she leans into it, almost enjoying the pain. The pendant, tucked safely under her sweater, sits heavy and warm on her chest. Ben is several yards off to her left; he’s writing in the sand again. He has a stick he keeps for this purpose, in the saddlebag of his old AJS 18S. _Old_. The motorcycle is 70 years old but just as he’s been trying to make a life for himself, here and now, he’s made that hunk of junk purr. He’s made it his own. 

They do this every Sunday; ride their bikes down to the beach together, watch the sun set into the ocean. He scratches in the sand and she wanders up and down the shore, toeing at the seaweed and shells that the sea discards as it makes its slow travels across the wide expanse of sand. She’ll watch him write, sometimes, but at a distance; she never reads the words. Those are private, his own, and she knows they aren’t for her; they’ll never be for her. She enjoys watching him anyway, low to the ground, the muscles of his shoulders moving under the thin fabric of his sweater - black, always black. It’s so different from the smooth strokes of his calligraphy pen. This movement is harsh, straight lines followed by straight lines, as though he’s writing runes. 

Rey listens to the soft splashing of the waves and the cries of the seagulls and watches Ben write in the sand. Later they’ll leave together as the sun dips below the horizon and the surf will lap at Ben’s words, carrying them away where nobody will ever read them. They’ll go home and eat dinner together. Rey will wish she could say something meaningful to Ben but she won’t, and he’ll give her that look that he always gives her but he won’t say anything either. After that they’ll sit in the living room and read, or else Ben will go to the attic and practice his calligraphy by the light of oil lamps, and Rey will sit alone in the back garden, listening to the soft peeps of the chickens as they settle in to roost. She’ll look up into the sky and imagine the asteroid, 2187 Vulcan, currently making its slow progress across the galaxy, on its collision course with Earth. Eventually Rey and Ben will go to sleep, each in their own bed, and the week will start again, much as every week has started in the year since Ben arrived from the past.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What we know:
> 
> Not much! The first chapter (really a prologue) happens tomorrow. With this chapter we move back to a year ago, and after this chapter we'll know a bit more. We do know that there is an asteroid with the name 2187 Vulcan which is on a collision course with Earth - this is important.
> 
> Hope you enjoy chapter two!

_One year ago_

“I gather this meeting isn’t about my transfer request.”

Captain Canady pinched his lips together and gazed purposefully out the window of his office. This particular window faced one of the many interior courtyards of the base, the base itself being a close maze of long, narrow buildings, interspersed with enormous hangars and warehouses, many of them long deserted. It always seemed haphazard to Rey, and she supposed it was; it had been built up quickly, without much of a plan, to push forward a project - a crazy dream - to save humanity. But once the technology had improved and people had started being shipped off-planet in large numbers, the majority of the enormous base wasn’t needed any longer. It had been dying a slow death over the years, bits of it slowly crumbling off and falling away; all that was left were the carcasses of buildings and the shadow of the original dream, and the constant reminder of the inevitable destruction of the planet.

Rey sighed, stared across the desk at the man’s profile, and waited. Eventually he turned back to her with a sad smile and leaned back into his chair. It was only seven-thirty am but he looked as though he’d been awake for hours. He rubbed his eyes and crossed his arms before speaking again.

“No, Miss Solo. This is not about your transfer request.”

Rey nodded, and did her best to hold in her disappointment. When the Captain had called her that morning, so early she was still in the shower and had missed the first rings, she’d only hoped he needed to see her immediately because they’d finally approved her request to transfer to Kepler-452b. 

“I wish I could help with that,” he continued, leaning forward, sympathy warming his voice, “We’ve talked about this before. Everybody wants to leave Earth, and as long as they’re prioritizing families with children everybody else just has to wait.”

Rey scoffed angrily. “Seven years? I think that’s long enough to wait, don’t you?”

The Captain shrugged sympathetically. “There’s just no way around it. I care about you, Rey, you know that, I will do as much for you that I can, but at the end of the day I’m just another cog in the machine.”

Rey nodded again, and allowed one tear to escape her eye before wiping it and sitting up straight again. The Captain waited patiently for her to compose herself, but it only took her a moment. Rey was used to composing herself.

“So what is this about, then? I don’t have a lot of time, my shift starts at eight.”

“I’ve already called over to let Poe know you’ll be late this morning, it’s not a problem.” He paused a moment and looked at Rey with a strange, haunted expression before standing up and stepping around the desk only to slump back down into the wooden chair next to her. He looked very sad, and tired.

“This meeting is about the mission to Proxima Centauri.”

“Okay,” Rey replied, thoroughly confused. That mission was old news; it was literally history. There was nothing new to be said about that mission, certainly nothing that required an early morning meeting. On instinct she pressed the fingers of her right hand against her chest, where a teardrop-shaped pendant embedded with a milky green stone nestled under her workshirt.

“The news is top secret but this place is full of leaks and it’s not going to stay secret for long. I wanted you to hear this from me instead of from the news or some journalist calling you, asking for a quote.” Rey could tell he was delaying, but when she rolled her eyes and sighed, he said, “Okay, fine. There’s no easy way to say this, Rey, so I’m just going to tell you: they’ve come home.”

“I… what? No. You mean the ship came back.” Rey suddenly felt very cold. “The ship came back?”

“Not just the ship.”

Rey’s mind swam. “That doesn’t make sense. That mission was sixty-eight years ago, Captain.” She did the math quickly in her head. “They’d all be a hundred years old, at least. Admiral Holdo would be one hundred and twenty. They didn’t have enough food to last that long. Are you telling me they’re alive?”

Captain Canady’s face was as white as Rey’s felt; lightheaded she leaned forward, head between her knees, and the Captain rubbed her back gently. The sensation was distant but familiar; her great-aunt Kira used to do that to her, too, when she was a child, after her mother had left. When Kira was alive. Rey shut her eyes tight and fought against the nausea that threatened to overtake her. 

“They’re alive, yes,” the Captain’s voice cut through the fog. “All three of them. Including Ben.”

Rey curled up, rocking in the chair, gripped the pendant through her shirt and clung to that part of herself that was always stable and composed.

“Kira was right,” he continued, still rubbing her back, his voice now soft and stained with tears. “Goddammit, Kira was _right_.”

* * *

That evening Rey ventured into the basement - into her great-aunt Kira’s private space, untouched since her death eight years before - and dug through the boxes that lined the front wall of the room. The rest of the room was filled with Kira's research materials, the oldest boxes labeled with projects relating to the Skywalker Program, but most of the boxes - and the file cabinets, and the charts tacked to the walls - were related to the research that had taken over the later portion of Kira's life. The research to discover what, exactly, had happened to the Proxima Centauri mission, and to prove that the team was alive, despite what everybody else believed.

Kira had spent many nights and weekends in this dark, cramped space, and although Rey had loved her great-aunt more than anything, she had often resented her insistence that her husband was alive. Rey hated the basement.

After the Proxima Centauri mission was declared missing, Kira had taken all of her husband’s belongings - anything that wasn’t in his attic office - boxed it up, and lined the boxes along one wall of the basement. Kira had stridently refused to sell or give away anything; she had insisted that her husband would need his things when he came home. After Kira had died, Rey found herself unable to do anything with them, so there they had remained.

“I miss you, Kiki,” Rey murmured to herself, pulling down the first box. She settled on her knees and touched the pendant; it gave her strength, and had since the day it was gifted to her. 

The pendant had originally been a gift to Kira from Ben; he’d purchased it for her on their honeymoon in Acapulco in 1944 - more than a year before the discovery of 2187 Vulcan. Kira had worn the pendant every day, and had given it to Rey five days before she died. She’d been lying on a cot in the living room, unable to walk up the stairs to her own bedroom, and she slept most of the time. When she was awake she was mostly not lucid; she’d ask for Ben, or she’d call Rey by her grandmother’s name; she’d tell Rey stories about Baby Rey, ask where she was and when she’d be home. Those last days of Kira’s life Rey had called into the base and begged off of school - by that point it was just her and two other girls, so nobody argued - and she never left Kira’s side. And then one afternoon Kira woke up clearheaded - although Rey hadn’t thought so at first.

“Rey,” she’d said, “my Ben is coming home.”

“Yes, Kiki,” Rey’d said, helping her sit up and giving her the straw so she could have a sip of water. The old woman had taken her sip and then had laughed at her, poking her chest with a shaking finger.

“You think I’m a crazy old woman, but I’m not.”

“Of course not, Kiki, I’m sorry.” And she’d meant it. Kira’s eyes were clear, and focused right on Rey.

“Ben is coming home, and you need to take care of him. He’ll be lonely, and afraid. He’ll need you, so you be there for him, Rey. For me. Please.”

Rey, sixteen years old, had thought about her aunt’s husband a lot, listening to her stories and looking at his photographs and imagining what it would be like if he came home.

He was never coming home, though, it was a ridiculous thing to suggest. But Kira had always been insistent, and it was easier to agree than argue.

“Of course I will. I’ll take care of Ben for you, I promise.”

Kira had relaxed into the pillow and gestured towards the doorway.

“Upstairs, in my bedroom. Dresser, top drawer, on the right. There’s something for you there.”

Rey had done as she was asked, and found there - on top of a pile of junk - an envelope, which she had taken back to where Kira lay waiting. The older woman had looked at the envelope and, satisfied, grasped the pendant around her neck, tugging on it until Rey’d helped her undo the clasp and removed it. Kira pushed it into Rey’s palm.

“Take this, wear it. He’ll know you if you wear it, Carrie.” And just like that, Kira was gone again. Rey fastened the chain behind her neck and tucked the green stone under her shirt, while Kira asked her where her punch cards had gone off to. The envelope went back into the drawer upstairs; it hadn't been for her after all. 

Rey shook off her reverie and opened the first box labelled ‘clothing’ to begin the process of sorting out the clothes, deciding what to take to Ben to get him through his weeks of debriefing. She continued talking as she dug through and took stock. “I wish you could have lived to see this. Nobody believed you, I didn’t believe you, not even Canady believed you, and they could be _so mean_.” Rey paused, realizing she was tossing the clothes around, and took a calming breath. “I just wish you could be here.” She took a few more breaths and set to work. 

The first box contained white button-up shirts with stiff collars, shorts and long pants in a variety of prints with really impressive pleats, and piles of kneesocks - black and white and many different shades of argyle. They smelled a bit musty, but didn’t seem to be damaged in any way; just old. The next few boxes were pretty much the same. Rey couldn’t help but laugh as she pulled yet another sportcoat out of a box and shook it out. “Jesus, Kiki, I can’t believe you let your husband go out in those things. Oh look - plaid on the outside _and_ on the inside!” 

In most of the photos Rey had seen of her great-aunt's husband, Ben had been at work, decked out in starched shirts and pleated pants, sometimes wearing a necktie, or with a pencil tucked behind his sizable ears. His hair had been long around the front and top but short on the sides, a style Kira had once told her was called a pompadour - it reminded Rey of James Dean’s hair in _Rebel Without a Cause_ , which Kira would watch at least once a month on the old box TV in her bedroom. There was a hallway in the old main building on base that featured photos from the earliest days of the Skywalker Program, the first attempt to make interstellar relocation a reality, and Kira and Ben featured prominently in many of them. When Rey was small, after her mother and stepfather had taken her baby sister and left her with Kira to start a new life on a new planet without her, Rey would spend the weekends at the base, where she was left free to wander that great, echoing hall. She dragged a chair up and down the hall, which she would stand on as she memorized all the photos, and practiced her reading skills on the yellowing index cards, carefully typed up and tacked under each photo. Here was Kira, standing with the first experimental hyperdrive, her husband tall behind her, grinning over her head, a stack of punch cards clutched in his hand. There was Ben, again with the goofy grin, dressed in his flight suit, standing alongside the other two members of the mission team, Kira just one face among many in the group that surrounded them.

Rey stacked the clothes neatly into the plastic laundry basket she’d brought with her into the basement. One by one she exhumed the contents of the boxes: more work clothes, pajamas and underwear, unopened bars of soap and bottles of aftershave, jigsaw puzzles, and books - textbooks and science fiction novels and stacks of issues of Popular Mechanics magazine. Rey set most of this aside, except for the soaps and aftershave, a couple of the more well-worn books, and the magazine issue that had a cover story about the Skywalker Program, featuring a full-spread photo of Kira and Ben, both of them smiling widely. 

The next two boxes were smaller, and were full of vinyl ‘78 records, which Rey didn’t look at; she wasn’t even sure if there was a record player in the house. When she opened the very last box she nearly cheered as she caught her first glimpse of blue denim. “This is more like it! I knew you wouldn’t let me down.” This box was full of blue jeans and black tee shirts, a few thin black sweaters, and at the bottom a heavily worn leather jacket, a pair of black boots, and two pairs of Chuck Taylor All-Stars. 

There had been a photo of Ben that Kira had kept at her bedside and which had been buried with her, a black and white photograph of Ben, dressed like a greaser and standing next to a black motorcycle, shining with chrome. His grin was infectiously charming, all dimples and crooked teeth. As a young child Rey had been enamored with that photo, had spent hours lying on her aunt's bed, contemplating it and wondering about Ben, the man that her aunt loved so much she refused to believe he was dead. Was he as good natured as his photos implied? What did his laugh sound like? Would he like her, if he came back? Would he want her, or would he leave her like her mother had left her? Soon, Rey would know the answers to these questions. She couldn't decide if the fluttery feeling in her chest was excitement or dread, so instead she pushed it away and concentrated on the task at hand. She pulled some of the shirts and pants out of the basket and replaced them with these clothes. Ben Solo may have worn plaid and argyle in 1952, but there was no way she was going to make him wear that stuff in 2019 if he could wear a soft black sweater instead.

Rey repacked everything she wasn't taking to Ben, and carried the basket upstairs to the laundry. Later in the evening she packed it all in one of Kira’s old suitcases: the clean clothes, books, soap, and two jars of fig jam and a jar of honey from the pantry. When everything else was done she went to Kira’s bedroom - another place that was untouched since her death - and pulled out the envelope that Kira had showed her the week before she died. It was addressed _To Ben Solo, on the occasion of his return to Earth_ , in Rey’s great-aunt’s familiar scrawl. Rey kissed the letter and held it briefly to her cheek before placing it on top of the tightly-packed suitcase and securing it with a long and satisfying _zip_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you are enjoying the story! Curious to know what you think / how you feel so far.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we finally meet Ben Solo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What we know:
> 
> The mission to Proxima Centauri, once presumed missing and dead, has returned 68 years after leaving Earth! Ben Solo is with them. Rey is nervous.
> 
> Ben Solo comes from 1952, and he brings a tiny bit of homophobia and perhaps a bit of racism with him.
> 
> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy chapter three!

In the morning Rey took the suitcase to Captain Canady for delivery to Ben. It was a pain; she’d hoped to strap it to the back of her bike, but it had been just a little too cumbersome so she’d had to attach the sidecar, which had ended up making her late for work. She didn’t often miss having a car - there were very few cars left on the street, they hadn’t been manufactured on Earth since the early '70s - but as she tightened the bolts that attached the sidecar to her bike she swore to herself and wished she’d kept Kira’s old Isetta. But she made it, and handed the suitcase off to the Captain, who’d promised to give it to Ben as soon as he could.

The next two weeks were a blur of anxiety and waiting. She woke up in the morning, went to work, and came home at night. She tended the vegetables in the garden and the greenhouse, fed the chickens, tended to the bees. She cooked and ate food and tinkered with her motorcycle and took long rides in the evening around the bay. She tried not to think about her family, waiting for her on a distant planet. She ignored phone calls from journalists and from her friends, which was a trick since she worked with them. Jess, her lab partner, danced around her, and when Rose tried a more direct approach Rey simply ignored her until she went away. When their supervisor, Poe, called her into his office for a conversation, she locked herself in one of the labs and focused on the project - an experimental hyperdrive that could give them access to new, even shorter lanes - and she stayed there until he left for the day. 

They didn't bother her anymore after that.

Every day at her lunch break Rey would trek across the all but abandoned base from the labs to Captain Canady's office to ask about Ben. They would sit across from each other at his desk, eat their packed sandwiches and drink cups of coffee brewed in the little coffee maker he kept in the corner of his office and the Captain would tell her what he could - which wasn't much, considering Rey's security clearance.

"They're done with debriefing," he said to her around a mouthful of fish, a month to the day after their first conversation. 

"So what's next?" Rey asked, picking at her egg salad.

"Counseling. Rehabilitation. A lot has changed since 1952, and they're all going to have a long journey to get back on their feet. Some of them will handle it better than others."

Rey wiggled uncomfortably in her seat. Canady continued.

"We're setting them up with apartments on base, and this morning they met with Ensign Storm to begin that process." He popped his last bit of crust into his mouth and washed it down with the dredges of his coffee cup.

Rey stared out into the empty courtyard. It was raining, the sky grey and the raindrops pattered noisily on the windowsill.

"Can I meet him?" Rey asked quietly. "Does he want to meet me?"

The Captain sighed and balled up the waxed paper in which he'd wrapped his lunch. 

"He doesn't know you exist, Rey."

Her head snapped back and she glared at him.

"I gave you a suitcase full of his clothes, his books, his things. Where does he think you got that from? How did you explain that to him?"

The Captain had the decency to look ashamed. "I… I haven't given it to him yet. It would have raised too many questions early on."

"Can you deliver it to him now?"

Her voice sounded harsh even in her own head, and her blood pounded in her ears.

"I'll make sure he gets it this afternoon."

Rey left soon after. She was so angry, and she didn't understand why. She skipped her evening ride to read once more through the Popular Mechanics article featuring her smiling great-aunt and her smiling husband, which had found a new home on the small table next to her bed.

* * *

For the next week, although they continued to eat lunch together, Captain Canady steadfastly refused to reply to any more of her questions about Ben, the answers to which he insisted were above her security clearance. Ensign Storm - Finn - didn’t reply to the repeated messages that Rey left on his office phone either; although considering how things had ended between them she didn’t really expect him to.

Instead of talking about Ben over lunch, Rey and the Captain talked about Kira.

"It's too bad she didn't live to see this," Captain Canady declared. This sentiment colored most of their conversations but Rey found a kind of dark comfort in covering the topic again and again. "I will admit that I resented the time she spent trying to prove her theories and her insistence that the mission was still out there somewhere. I requested an appointment here so I could work with her, play a big part in this whole,” he waved his hand over his half-eaten sandwich, “getting off the planet thing, and then most of the time she’s in another room moaning about her dead husband.” 

“I know exactly what you mean,” Rey said. “I loved her, but she spent so much time thinking about Ben. It would have been nice to have all that attention for myself.”

“She loved you, though,” The Captain said softly, reaching out to rub her shoulder. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this, shouldn’t complain. If it makes you feel bad.”

“Oh, it doesn’t make me feel bad!” Rey lied. “Well, it’s not _terrible_. Just… very strange.” She picked at a gouge in the top of the wooden desk that someone had made with a ballpoint pen. “Did he say anything to you about the suitcase?”

He shook his head as he swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “Nope. He’s been wearing the clothes, though, instead of the ones provided by the base. Plaid jackets and black sweaters, right?” 

Rey nodded. “Yeah, black sweaters. I guess he used to wear them when he was doing motorcycle stuff.”

“They were greasers on the weekend, yeah.” The Captain laughed. “Well, he looks good in them. The plaid, not so much.”

The Captain laughed at his own joke and Rey’s brain conjured Ben in the old photo on Kira’s bedside table, with the leather jacket and the crooked smile, and it made her feel strange. 

“That’s good.”

“He wants to meet you.”

Rey’s head snapped up. “He wants to meet me?”

“You, yes. I told him a bit about you.”

Rey tried to keep her face neutral, disinterested. “What did you tell him?”

“Your name. That you’re Kira’s great-niece, that she raised you. That your parents are off planet. That you work as an engineer here at the base.”

Rey’s blood pulsed so loudly in her ears she was surprised she could hear his words, and her cheeks were so hot she was sure he could read her mind, that he knew exactly how she was feeling. Excited. Frightened. Eager. Terrified.

“Wow.” She said, sitting up straight. “Okay. Um, when? When can I meet him? Can I meet him now?”

She started to stand, and Captain Canady laughed at her. She slumped back into her seat, feeling stupid.

“Calm down, Rey. Tomorrow. We’ll bring them coffee after lunch. You can meet all of them. Finn will be there too, I don’t think you’ve seen him in a while.”

Captain Canady hadn’t been a party to her brief relationship with Finn, or to their breakup, but there were only so many people on base to gossip about, so he must know something even if Rey never said anything to him about it. 

“That’s cool,” Rey said, as nonchalantly as she could, and tipped her lunch litter into the garbage pail. “Maybe I’ll bring a couple more books for him, or a puzzle, if that’s okay?”

The Captain nodded and smiled at her warmly. “I think he’d like that very much; I’ll let him know he has something to look forward to tomorrow.”

* * *

Lunch the next day was agony. 

Rey had her usual lunch - egg salad from her chickens, served on bread she made herself. She also had a small salad. Some of the vegetables were from her own garden, others from her neighbors. Rey had helped her next-door neighbor, Maz, with her bees, until the previous spring, when the woman had passed away, at which point Rey took over responsibility for the neighborhood’s honey. She had opened a small jar of honey that morning, and it always made her think of her old friend. Some of that honey was in the sweet, tangy dressing that coated her salad, and the rest was in her bag.

Rey ate her food, but barely tasted it. Captain Canady talked to her, and she replied, but she didn’t really know what she was saying. She was tired, and antsy. She hadn’t slept well the night before, had stayed up late reading through that same damn Popular Mechanics article, had even gone into the basement and poked around on Kira’s desk until the electricity had gone out and she’d had to stumble upstairs in the dark after discovering the batteries in the basement flashlight were dead. She had finally gotten to sleep, well after midnight, and had dreamed of Kira, an old woman, and Ben, young and dark with that beautiful smile. She dreamed that they both talked to her, together - Kira’s voice still familiar even after years apart, and Ben’s from old documentaries that she and her aunt used to watch on the old TV in the living room.

The Captain said something and stood up, pushing his chair back so it scraped loudly against the floor.

“What?” Rey asked.

“I asked if you’re ready to go meet your uncle. I’ll brew a fresh pot of coffee, and then we can go.”

Rey’s stomach clenched uncomfortably. “ _Not_ my uncle,” she grumbled, grabbing the canvas bag that shrugged at her feet and holding it in her lap. “My great-aunt’s husband. No blood relation.”

The Captain’s back was to her so she couldn't see his face, but she imagined his smirk, and she was glad he couldn’t see her blush. She sat quietly while he puttered at the coffeemaker, scooping the grounds into the reusable filter and filling the reservoir from the pitcher of water he kept by the window. He also filled the electric kettle, which boiled as the coffee brewed. He pulled five mugs from the menagerie on the high shelf, and took the two that he had Rey used over lunch. Rey’s mug he filled with fresh coffee, and three of the others he filled with coffee as well. The other two mugs he graced with a couple of scoops of dried herbs from an airtight metal container, followed by hot water. Rey offered him the jar of honey, and he took it with a word of thanks and added it to the tray where the mugs were all balanced, along with a jar of white powder and several spoons.

“Let’s go, Rey,” he said softly, and led the way out of his office, towards wherever it was that Rey’s future was waiting.

* * *

They were in a conference room, one of the oldest in the main building. The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked what used to be the main courtyard of the base, which was now a wild confrontation of broken asphalt and weeds. Rey barely had a chance to breathe before Captain Canady balanced the tray on one arm and pushed the door open with his free hand. Embarrassed, Rey realized that she should have offered to help, but by then it was too late and she was following him into the room. The day was bright and clear and sunlight streamed through the windows, and Rey’s eyes needed a moment to acclimate after the dimness of the unlit hallways. Before she really had a chance to look around, however, a voice cried out from across the room, followed by the sound of footsteps.

“Kira!”

It was a woman’s voice; slightly deep, and a little rough, but pleasant. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the voice said again, closer. “Of course you’re not Kira. I’m so sorry. It’s still a bit strange.”

The owner of the voice was standing in front of her now, and Rey’s eyes had adjusted enough to the new light that she could see her clearly. She was tall, slender, wearing a grey dress that hung in perfect drapes across her narrow body, and with wavy, chin-length hair that was an incongruous shade of violet. Not that there was anything wrong with violet hair; hair color was mutable and dye was cheap. Rey herself had colored her hair all sorts of shades in the past, although at the moment it was its usual boring brown. No - it was incongruous because the woman bearing the hair was Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, the leader of the mission to Proxima Centauri.

“Admiral,” Rey said, standing up straight and pulling the bag closer to her. The woman laughed, throwing her head back, a joyful sound that made Rey’s heart beat faster. Rey had known that the mission team was alive, but it was one thing to know it and another to have the mission leader laugh in front of you, to have her take your hand in both of hers and hold it gently, to look into your eyes and see the reflection of someone they loved looking back.

“Please,” the woman said, “just call me Amilyn. I think my days of being an Admiral are behind me. And you’re Rey, of course.”

“Rey Solo,” Rey replied quietly, then cleared her throat and said it again, louder. “I’m Rey Solo.”

“Kira’s grand-niece,” Captain Canady said from the sideboard, where he’d set the tray and was setting out the honey and creamer. “I brought coffee - and tea for us, Ami.”

"It is lovely to meet you, Rey. You are the vision of Kira. I know she would be very proud of you."

Amilyn gave Rey’s hand a squeeze before dropping it and walking over to join the Captain. Rey finally had the opportunity to look around the room. Finn was there, seated at a table, in black jeans and a purple button-up shirt, the twists in his hair long and hanging close to his eyes. He caught her eye and smiled shyly, though he did not rise from his chair. 

“Hey, Rey, you doing okay?”

She nodded, and smiled, and looked at the man who was sitting across from him, studying the chess set between them. This man was thin, with shaggy ginger hair and a full beard, and he wore a khaki shirt and trousers that Rey recognized as being ancient base provisions. He was fully engaged by the game but as she watched he made his move, removed a white pawn from the board, smirked at Finn, and finally turned to look at Rey. He blinked at her for a moment, then stood, a warm smile on his face.

“Miss Solo, I’m Armitage Hux, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

“Sir,” she said, holding her hand out for him to shake.

He blew air out from between his lips. “Just call me Hux.”

“I’m Rey.”

Amilyn stepped up and handed each of them a mug of coffee. Hux, laughing, helped her balance a third as he took his mug from her overloaded hands.

“Thank you, Hux. And if you’ll excuse us, please, I’ll take Rey over and introduce her to Ben.”

Hux returned to his seat and Rey followed Amilyn to the corner, where Ben Solo sat in an armchair that was about half a size too small for him, legs crossed, hand on his chin, gazing out the window and looking slightly dazed.

“Ben,” Holdo said gently, placing the mug on the low, round table around which a few other chairs were gathered. “There’s someone here you need to meet.”

Ben turned in the chair and scooted to the edge, larger than life; hulking, and - most strangely for Rey - unsmiling. There was no familiar crooked smile to be found here; Ben’s teeth, assuming he still had them, were enclosed behind his lips, turned down at the corners. _Brooding_ was the descriptor that jumped to her mind. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring right at her, his eyes flicking first across her face, and then lower. It settled on her chest, which unnerved her until she remembered that she was wearing her pendant. It had been a gift to her from her great-aunt, and she knew - but had forgotten until now - that it had been a gift to her from her husband. He took a deep breath and his eyes went back to their scrutiny. He was wearing one of the sweaters and a pair of jeans that Rey had packed in the suitcase for him, and something about seeing those old clothes on his body made her feel warm, made her head spin, and she had to lower herself into the other armchair. He watched her settle, his eyes keen and warm, a strange shade of light brown that the old black and white photos hadn’t done justice. His hair was longer than in any of the old photos, and he had grown a moustache and goatee. Rey wasn’t sure she liked it.

“Ben,” Holdo said, "This is-"

“Rey,” he replied, and she relished the way his mouth mulled around the single syllable of her name, making it sound like something special. “Rey Solo.”

“Hi,” Rey said, giving him a little wave which he did not acknowledge. “I’m Kira’s great-niece. My mom, Kaydel, was the daughter of Kira’s sister Carrie.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Rey,” he said, unconvincingly, and Amilyn quietly took her leave. They sat together for several minutes, sipping coffee and looking at everything except for each other, until finally Rey couldn't take it anymore.

“Looks like you got the suitcase after all.”

He nodded and looked down at himself, straightened his legs to show off the All Stars. “Still fit, after all these years.” His execution was deadpan but Rey laughed anyway, an ugly bark that she covered immediately with her hand. It wasn’t that funny but she was so nervous; he could have said anything and she probably would have laughed. He just stared at her again, and she wiggled uncomfortably under his gaze.

It wasn’t his fault; she wasn’t sure what she’d expected, anyway. Just because she was excited to meet him didn’t mean he would feel the same way about meeting her. He’d arrived from space to discover that everyone he’d loved was dead. Why would he care about her? Rey sat on the edge of her chair, holding the canvas bag in her lap with one had and sipping coffee with her other hand, feeling stupid. She tapped her feet, and glanced over and Finn and Hux playing chess, the Captain and Amilyn hovering over them, shoulder-to-shoulder

“They look like they’re having fun,” Ben’s voice floated, deep and soft, from his place in the corner. 

Rey answered without looking back at him. “They do, don’t they? Is Hux very good at chess?”

Ben shifted in his seat. “Yes. We played a lot on the mission, and he beat both me and Amilyn nine times out of ten.” A pause, the sound of the mug settling heavily on the table. “How about Finn?”

Rey shrugged. “I’m not a good judge; I’m very bad at chess. He always beats me, though, for what that’s worth.”

“Do you play chess with Finn a lot?”

She glanced back at him. He looked past her, at the men, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“I used to. Not so much since we broke up.” She took a slurp of coffee and her heart skipped when his glance moved from over her shoulder to her face.

“You dated him?” He sounded surprised, and she remembered where he came from. When. It was unusual for white women to date black men in 1952, wasn’t it? Rey suddenly felt very uncomfortable, her cheeks burned.

“Interracial marriage has been legal since 1967,” she snapped. “There’s no reason for me _not_ to date him.”

“Hey,” Ben said softly, reaching out towards her knee, but not quite touching it. “That’s not what I meant, at all. I just mean… he and Hux are very, ah, friendly.” 

“Oh,” Rey replied, understanding. She glanced back just in time to see Finn pick up a black knight off the chessboard, giving Hux a smirk and a wink in the process. “Ah. Well, sure. Finn’s bi.”

Ben didn’t respond to that, and she turned back to him. His eyebrows were pulled together in confusion and she wanted to laugh at him. This entire conversation was ridiculous.

“Bi. Bisexual. It means he’s both heterosexual and homosexual. You know what that means, right?”

“Oh! Yes. Bisexual, yes.” He pressed his lips together and nodded.

Rey pushed down a brief burst of annoyance and took a breath. “It’s not a big deal these days. Homosexual marriage has been legal for years.”

He didn’t answer that, just kept staring over her shoulder at Hux and Finn - who, Rey gathered from the shouts and laughs, and Hux’s groan - had just won the game. This was absolutely not the conversation that Rey expected to have today, and she was certain Ben felt the same way.

“This is a lot, isn’t it,” Rey whispered. She wasn’t sure at first that Ben heard her, until his eyes slipped to hers and he pinched the cuff of his left sleeve between his right thumb and forefinger, rubbing the fabric between the pads of his fingers as though checking to make sure it was real.

“It is,” he answered. He worked his jaw back and forth as though there were words just waiting to break free and he had to physically hold them back. Rey imagined he was thinking about Kira; it’s what she would have done in his place.

“Here,” she said quickly, handing the limp canvas to him. “I found this in the basement, I thought you might want it.”

Ben took it tentatively. She imagined that he avoided her fingers in the process, but it was so hard to tell what was him and what was her, reading into him. He set it on his knees and carefully pulled out the object that lay within. He froze, staring.

It was a framed photograph; clearly the sibling of the photo of Ben that Kira had kept by her bedside, and which had been buried with her. This photo was of Kira, dressed in a pleated skirt and a black leather jacket, leaning against a black and chrome motorcycle, the ocean gleaming past a cliff in the distance. She was laughing, her head thrown back, shoulder-length hair flying in the breeze. Rey had found the photo shoved behind a row of books about theoretical astronomy on one of the messier shelves in the basement. Hidden, forgotten, but now found. She’d hoped Ben would like it.

He stared at it for what was probably just a few moments, but which felt to Rey like forever. He stared and stared and swallowed, and moved his jaw. Finally he glanced up at Rey, and then she was frozen, too.

“You don’t look like her,” he said, setting the photo face-down on the table, next to his forgotten mug of coffee. 

“I’ve always been told that I do,” Rey replied, her mouth feeling strange and dry.

Ben tilted his head to the side, his eyes flitting over her face, and shook his head.

“I mean, I see a family resemblance,” Ben said quietly, thoughtfully, leaning forward again. “Your eyes are a similar shape, but yours are farther apart, and they’re a different color. Hers are more brown, and yours are,” he tilts his head the other way, and she can _feel_ him looking at her, “more green. Hazel, I think it’s called? Her cheekbones are higher than yours, and her lips aren’t quite as…” He trails off and flinches slightly, as though realizing what he’d been saying. “Your ears are different. Anyway, no, you don’t look much like Kira at all.”

Rey didn’t know what to do with that, and she didn’t have much time to think about it because at that moment Captain Canady appeared by her shoulder to say it was time to go. The men shook hands, and Ben started to reach out to her but then withdrew, ending up giving her a feeble wave instead. 

“Thank you, Rey.” He sounded sincere. Rey smiled and nodded, limp canvas clutched to her chest again.

They said their goodbyes to everyone else, and Rey headed back to the lab. Halfway across the base she realized that she didn’t know when she’d get to see Ben again; she wasn’t even sure she wanted to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Isettas are these tiny microcars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta). I imagine once people started moving offworld in large numbers, most manufacturing would have gone towards that effort and petrol would have been at a premium. People shifted to microcars, and then later to motorcycles.
> 
> Thanks again to flypaper_brain for her beta work on this chapter and every chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation with Hux, and we meet Ben again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where we are:
> 
> Rey and Ben have met; Rey has also met the other crew members from the lost mission, Hux and Holdo
> 
> Rey feels some kind of way about Ben; she's still trying to figure it out. It is unclear how Ben feels.
> 
>   
> Thanks to redbelles, here and in future chapters, for her stellar motorcycle knowledge! Ben's bike is a big deal for him and I wanted to make sure it is at least a little realistic, so many thanks to her for answering all my questions. All mistakes are, of course, my own.
> 
> And as usual thank you to flypaper_brain for the excellent beta work!

Two weeks later, the Captain invited Rey to have after-lunch coffee with the returned team a second time. Rey had been thinking about Ben quite a lot in the meantime, but instead of focusing on the person in the old photo she focused on him - the _real_ him. The man in the chair, with the broad shoulders and the hair over his ears, the honey eyes, the serious mien. He was very unlike his photo. He looked the same, but he wasn’t the same. Rey remembered what he said to her, how he thought she didn’t really look like Kira aside from a family resemblance, and she thought perhaps it was the same with him. Kira had long surmised that the mission had been caught in a wormhole, something that would hold them outside of time until it spat them back out some undeterminable future date. But perhaps that wasn’t it. Perhaps they’d been switched with doppelgangers, all three of them, and this person wasn’t Ben Solo at all. 

She knew this was ridiculous. He was Ben - he was just scared, and overwhelmed. She wouldn’t smile either, if she was in his position.

Rey was nervous about seeing him again, but she needn’t have worried - he wasn’t at coffee after all. Hux and Amilyn were both there, though, and they greeted her warmly. Even Finn was kind, he dealt her into their game of Gin and he talked to her and made her feel welcome even though she could tell they all knew that she was disappointed by Ben’s absence.

When the game was over Amilyn and Captain Canady sat in the corner to have a tête-à-tête, and Rey went to stand by the window. Autumn was approaching, and a scattering of leaves blew across the ground - who knows where from, there were no trees to be seen from the windows, only weeds and broken asphalt. She sipped her tepid coffee and wondered why Ben wasn’t there.

“Hello there,” a voice sounded near her right ear, and she jumped, looking up into the smiling face of Armitage Hux. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said, his soft Irish accent rolling like mist down a green hillside. 

Rey did her best to manage a smile. “You just surprised me, that’s all. I’m okay.”

“You’ll have to excuse Ben for not being here yet,” Hux said softly. Rey shook her head and started to reply but he interrupted her. “It’s not fine, but it is what it is. He’s having a lot more trouble with this than either Amilyn or I am, but he is doing the best he can. He wants to know you, Rey, I promise, it’s just going to take him a while to get to it.”

“Because of Kira,” she said.

“Of course.” He took her by the elbow and pulled her over to the two chairs by the chessboard, where the detritus of his last game with Finn was still spread. She set down her mug and picked up one of the black rooks, running her fingertip along the crenellations at the top of the tower.

“You seem to be doing fine,” she grumbled, surprised by her own sudden anger and the churlishness that came along with it. “You and Holdo.” 

His hand reached out and grabbed the rook out of her hand, a move that surprised her, made her look up into his face. His eyes were sharp, and he leaned forward and pointed into her face.

“You have _no idea_ what our lives were like,” he declared, setting the rook down on the board with an exaggerated gentleness that came close to frightening Rey. “I hated it. My father, my…” he crossed his arms and sat back, blowing air out of puffed cheeks. “I’m dating Finn, did you know that? I never could have done that before. But my father is dead, and society has changed. It’s not all good, especially the whole,” he waved his hand around, “giant asteroid, everybody leaving the planet, imminent destruction. But it’s better for _me_. I’m glad this happened.” 

“That makes sense,” Rey said, after a moment’s reflection. “I’m glad for you. And for Finn, too. I didn’t know.”

Hux smiled, a sweet thing that pulled his cheeks up, made his eyes squint endearingly. “Thank you.”

She looked across the room. Finn had joined the Captain and Amilyn in the corner, and Amilyn had moved from her chair to perch on the arm of the chair the Captain was in, her hand rested gently on his shoulder. “Amilyn looks happy too.”

Hux glanced over his shoulder and chuckled. “Amilyn didn’t have a life before. Her job was everything. She was a little bit jealous of Ben and Kira, sometimes. Not because she wanted Ben - he’s too young for her - or Kira either, but because it reminded her of choices she’d made that she couldn't take back.”

“And now she gets a second chance.”

“A second chance, exactly.” He began the process of setting the pieces upright and placing them back on the board.

“Captain Canady is really decent. I’ve known him for as long as I can remember; he worked for Kira, and he helped take care of me after she died.”

Hux hummed and placed the last of the pieces - the white queen. “What was she like? When you knew her?”

“She was old,” Rey said, and Hux laughed loudly enough that the trio in the corner stopped talking and stared at him. “What? She was! She was seventy-seven when my parents left and eighty-eight when she died. I loved her to death, but she _was_ an old woman when I knew her. But,” she grew more thoughtful, “I did get a better sense of her as I grew up, too. Mind you I was only sixteen when she died, but I know she was smart. Very smart, like… she used to get ideas in the middle of the night, and she’d bang around in her room lighting candles and stuff and waking me up. She would try to explain her ideas to me and then she’d get ahead of herself or interrupt herself, and end up pacing around the kitchen and letting dinner burn because she was so inside her own head.”

Hux was smiling, nodding, playing a game of chess against himself as Rey kept talking, memories of Kira coming back to her, things she’d forgotten years before.

“When I was… oh, maybe thirteen years old, she had a new theory. She, uh, she never believed that your mission was missing, not really. That Ben had died, that you’d died, I mean.”

“I heard that,” Hux said, taking a white pawn with a black bishop. “It was really good to know that somebody didn’t give up on us.”

“Yeah, well for me it was mostly annoying.” He glanced up and they traded a smile; it felt nice, a connection. “Anyway she had a new theory and she decided to make a model to illustrate it, using like… clay and twigs and string and shit. And she built the model in the kitchen, but she hadn’t got the scale quite right and it ended up covering the entire first floor, the hallway and the living room, and it was there for months. Or it felt like months.”

“It was months! Four months!” Captain Canady chimed in from the corner, and they all laughed. Tears pricked at the corners of Rey’s eyes.

“Four months,” Rey echoed. “That was life with Kira.”

“She sounds like she didn’t change much,” Hux said, taking a black knight with a white rook. “She was a lot like that when I knew her, too. Always thinking, always doing.”

“She was wonderful,” Rey sighed. “She loved me. And,” she said more quietly, “she loved Ben. She never, ever gave up believing that he was alive, that he could come back.”

“And she was right.”

“I wish she’d lived to see it, though.”

He looked up from the board, his eyes thoughtful. “Do you believe in heaven? The afterlife? Anything like that?”

Rey shrugged. “Not really, and neither did Kira, I don’t think. She believed in science, in the laws of physics. She believed in the stars.”

“Maybe she’s in the stars then, watching you both from up there. You and Ben.” He paused, moved his black knight, and whispered _checkmate_ before gazing back up at her, eyes keen and green through eyelashes so blonde they were almost invisible. “She knows, is what I’m saying.”

Rey believed that he was right, and that made her feel better.

“I’m also saying that Ben lost a lot more than Amilyn and I did. I’m happier now, and she’s fine - she’s always been a very stable person who takes things as they come. But Ben, he loved Kira more than anything in the world, I think. He was so excited to see her again after the mission, she was all he talked about for the week before we arrived home, and then to land and find out that she’s gone? The world changing, I think he could have handled that, but _her_ ,” Hux shook his head and started setting up the pieces again, “And not just her being gone, but what she had to go through for so many years… I can’t even imagine how he must be feeling right now.”

Rey brought her hands up to her shoulders and pulled against them, stretching out her back as she watched Hux finish setting up and begin playing another game with himself. He was right, she knew it; she’d seen how much Kira had missed Ben, for sixty years she’d missed him, and as far as Ben was concerned he’d seen Kira just a year ago. Rey felt hot with shame. She missed her aunt and she was attracted to her aunt’s husband, even though she didn’t know him. She had to admit that she’d had a crush on him for as long as she’d had crushes, and it had always seemed harmless. But now that he was here it didn’t feel harmless at all. It felt exciting, and dangerous, and wrong, and unfair to Ben. The shame churned in her chest, and she mulled it over until it was time to go back to work.

Rey was helping the Captain gather up the mugs when a clamoring at the door announced Ben Solo’s arrival. He was wearing shorts and a tee shirt - base provisioned - and he was sweating and breathing heavily. 

“I went for a run,” he said, ignoring everyone in the room except for Rey, and crossing the room to reach her in a handful of long strides. 

“How was it?” She asked cooly, eyes on the mugs, wiping her shaking hands on the thighs of her jeans.

“Good. Weather’s nice, not too cold.” He took a step closer and she could smell him beside her - his sweat, musky and salty, tinged with the scent of the soap from the basement. “I ran down to the bay but some of the streets have closed and I got lost coming back.”

“Oh. They’re letting you go off base now?”

“Yeah, just since Sunday. Anyway, I didn’t mean to miss coffee.” She turned to him and he was close - so close. His face was open, and he looked worried - like he was sure she hated him, like he might cry. She felt her steel soften, and then she opened her mouth and said something she had not planned to say.

“In that case, you should stop by the house. Saturday night. Seven o’clock?”

Rey had not considered asking Ben to come over until the words were out of her mouth, and she would never know what spirit encouraged her to say such a thing. “If you want to, that is.”

“Of course.” He nodded, looking slightly dazed, and the ghost of a smile flitted across one corner of his mouth before disappearing again. “Saturday, seven o’clock. Uh, how should I get there? Should I take a taxi or something? Although I didn’t see any on my run. Or any cars at all, for that matter.”

Rey shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll pick you up, okay?”

“Okay.”

They stood there awkwardly for a moment.

“Well, I need to get back…”

“I should probably go…”

They spoke at the same time, and laughed nervously together. Then they said goodbye and Rey made her way slowly across the base, back to the lab, thinking about Saturday and feeling both unreasonably excited and deeply guilty. 

* * *

At 7:21 on Friday night there was a knock on the front door of Rey's house; she flinched in surprise and a teaspoon of raw sausage dropped onto the floor with a wet _splat_.

"Goddammit," she muttered, plucking it up and tossing it in the garbage before wiping her fingers on her jeans and skipping up the hallway to answer the door. She never expected visitors, but sometimes a neighbor would drop by with something to barter, or just to chat, but she was surprised to find Ben standing on the other side of the door, wearing his leather jacket and a black watch cap. As soon as she opened the door, he ripped the cap off his head and squeezed it in both hands. 

"Good evening, Rey," he said, his voice wavering slightly, although Rey didn’t think it was too cold outside. "I, uh, went for a walk and wasn't really paying attention but when I ended up in the old neighborhood I thought I might stop by and see if you need help… uh. Or something?"

Rey's house was five miles from the base. How long had he been walking? Rey didn't think she needed help, but maybe Ben did.

She stepped aside, held the door open, yellow light spilling out onto the porch and illuminating Ben's face. The bright electric light highlighted the dark circles under his eyes.

"Please come in, Ben. Have you had dinner? I already ate but I can make you an omelette, with a little cheese. Maybe some sausage?"

He took a step in and stopped, gazing around the front hallway, up the dark and narrow stairway to the second floor, past her into the bright kitchen. She gently tugged him forward by his sleeve to make room to shut the door.

Ben shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on one of the pegs on the wall before following Rey into the kitchen.

He stopped in the doorway; he was still holding the cap in his hands, twisting it this way and that as he glanced from corner to corner, across the walls, up to the ceiling. Rey washed her hands in the sink and dried them on the soft cloth hanging from the oven handle.

“Ben?” She insisted softly. “Can I make you some dinner?”

He stared at her for a moment, nodded his head. “That would be nice, thank you.”

“It must be strange to be back in the house. Has it changed much?”

“It is a bit strange,” he admitted, taking a step in the door. “The floor’s different, color’s different. New paint.”

As Ben looked around Rey got to work on the omelette - sausage in the pan, a bit of chopped onion - 

“Three eggs enough?”

“Sure.” He peeked into a small door in the wall directly to his left. “It’s a bathroom!”

Rey finished breaking the eggs into a bowl and began the process of whisking them up. 

“Oh right. Yeah, I remember Kiki telling me that she had it installed after my mom and I moved in with her. It’s just a half, but the three of us were apparently too many to share the upstairs bathroom.”

“You call her Kiki?” He sounded surprised.

Rey blushed. “Apparently my little mouth had issues saying her name when I was a baby, and it came out Kiki. It’s a little silly, I guess.”

“Not at all. I used to call her Kiki.”

“Oh! That’s a funny coincidence.”

“It is.”

He walked across the room and peered out the window in the door that led into the garden. 

“Feel free to wander, go upstairs if you’d like. This will take just a minute.”

“That’s okay. I’ll just stay here. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all - whatever makes you comfortable. Would you like something to drink? I have some rose hip and mint iced tea, if that’s your thing.”

“No thanks.”

Rey poured the eggs over the sizzling sausage; she could hear Ben shifting behind her, his footsteps, the scrape of a chair against the floor.

“What happened? I mean, how did you end up living with Kira? Canady didn’t really explain that to me.”

Rey gave the eggs a stir and turned around to face him. He was watching her, legs crossed, hands in his lap. 

“She didn’t tell you in her letter?” The contents of the sealed letter that Rey had placed in the suitcase were a mystery to her - she’d wondered, of course, but would never open it herself - but she had assumed it might include basic information like her parentage and history. 

“No,” Ben replied, focusing his gaze on the back door. “That letter wasn’t particularly, uh, practical like that.”

“Okay.” Rey turned back to the pan, flipped the eggs, and gave it a few more seconds before sliding it onto a plate, dropping some soft cheese over it and folding it over. She carried it to him, along with a fork, and dropped into the other chair.

Ben took the fork in hand and pulled the plate to him. 

“This smells delicious. Are you going to eat?”

“No, I already ate, you go ahead. Anyway, my dad died when I was three-” 

“I’m sorry,” Ben interrupted, his first bite of omelette balanced on the tines of his fork, halfway to his mouth. He looked so earnest.

“It’s okay, I don’t really remember him.” She said it with a smile, an automatic response that she told herself helped to mask the pain. Ben didn’t seem to know how to take it, instead of replying he took a bite of food instead.

“Oh, yum!” he said around it. “S’really good!”

Rey allowed herself to preen at the praise. “Thanks! It’s all from the back - my eggs, sausage from our friends at the end - he has a few pigs and just butchered one last week - and another one has a goat and makes cheese. We barter - cheese and sausage for eggs. It works out nicely.”

Ben, who had apparently decided not to let her change the subject, nodded as he portioned off another bite of food. “When you were three?”

Rey steeled herself for the story ahead. She’d told it a million times in her head, but only a few times in real life - to Canady, although he knew it; to her best friend, after Kira died - the young woman was long since transported away to a new life on a different planet. And to Finn, who had been weird about it, and they’d broken up just a week later.

“Yeah, he died and my mom wasn’t in a good place - he’d been sick and I found out later that she’d been taking his painkillers, that kind of thing - so Kiki took us in.”

“That sounds like something she’d do. She was always, uh,” he paused, and grimaced.

“Taking in strays?” Rey finished the thought for him. “It’s okay, I know what you mean. She didn’t do that as much in her later years, I think having me and the chickens gave her enough to take care of. Anyway, when I was four mom got married again, to some guy she worked with at the base, and he moved in here too. And right after they got married they put in for a transfer.”

“Hmph?” Ben said, around a mouthful of food. He swallowed and tried again. “What does that mean, a transfer?”

“It’s moving off-planet. Relocating. You need permission, because there are only so many spots on each transport, and it’s really strict. Anyway, they had a baby after they put in for the transfer - a girl. My sister, Lily. She was so tiny.” Rey paused and glanced up at Ben. He sat frozen, his half-eaten omelette growing cold in front of him. Rey took a breath and looked back down at the table. “The transfer was only for three - two adults and one child - so they couldn’t take both of us immediately.”

“What did they do?” Ben asked. His attention was intense, his eyes dark and serious. If she hadn't known better she'd have said he looked protective. Rey shivered. 

“They went, the three of them, and they promised to send for me as soon as they could. I remember my mom hugging me, crying and promising me that they would see me soon. And I’ve been waiting ever since.” She paused, slowing her breathing and willing her tears to stay put. 

Ben reached out a hand across the table, but it didn’t quite reach Rey. The gesture touched her somewhere deep inside, like a door, waiting to be unlocked. She kept her hands in her lap.

“I’m so sorry, Rey.”

“I mean, it’s okay. Kiki was great, I couldn’t have asked for a better guardian, really. She loved me, she taught me a lot. She took good care of me. And then, right at the end, I got to take care of her.”

Ben did the thing with his jaw he’d done before, as though he was rolling words around in his mouth, trying to decide how they tasted, if they were worth speaking. She waited, but he remained quiet.

“She died well,” Rey said, quietly answering his unanswered question, fighting the tears again that kept insisting on springing up in her eyes. “She was home, in there,” she gestured towards the wall behind Ben, which separated the kitchen from the living room. “She was in her own bed, she was comfortable, asleep. I was with her.”

Ben’s hand still rested on the table, and she slipped her hand into it. It was very large, dwarfed hers, and it was warm. She squeezed it, and he squeezed back.

“Thank you,” he whispered through his tears. “I’m sorry I…” he shook his head. “I’m just sorry.”

“I like to think she’s in the stars,” Rey said, “looking down on us. So she knows you’re home now.”

“That’s a nice thought.”

Rey enjoyed sitting at the table with Ben, holding his hand, but after a moment he pulled his hand back so he could finish his dinner. 

“So why haven’t you transferred?” Ben asked, as he carried his plate to the sink. Rey started to stand, but he waved her down. “Kiki always made me do my own dishes, I’ll take care of it.”

Rey smiled and watched him scrub the plate.

“I put in for a transfer as soon as I turned eighteen, to Kepler-452b, which is where they went. But demand for space exceeds supply and families with children have priority. These days, a couple with a baby might need to wait three years, but a single person will have to wait a lot longer than that. Obviously.”

“How long have you been waiting, then?”

“Seven years.”

“So you’re, uh, twenty-five?” Ben sounded nonchalant as he rinsed the plate and set it on the drainboard. Rey tried not to admire how his shoulders moved under the black sweater. “Sorry, Captain Canady never gave me your age.”

“Yeah,” she said, a little confused. “I’m twenty-five.”

Ben nodded and placed his fork on the drainboard. 

“So, what is this about goats in the yard?” He asked. “Is there a farm back there now?”

“Kind of, yeah. You want to see?”

Ben did want to see, so Rey led them out the back door into the dark, cool evening. The sun had set an hour before, and the chickens were cooing softly in their coop, which rested halfway between Rey’s house and the one beyond, which fronted the parallel street. That house was dark and empty, and it had been for as long as Rey could remember. She stepped out onto the path that rambled around the different sections of the garden, and Ben followed. It was dark but the moon was full, and bright enough that her eyes acclimated very quickly. She walked slowly, and spoke loudly enough that Ben could hear from where he walked behind her.

“Around the time my family left there were a lot of transfers, they had more transports running then than they do now, and by the time I was eight a bunch of houses on this block and the one behind were vacant.”

“They’re all dark, now,” Ben interjected, and Rey looked more carefully. Indeed, although a few of the houses down her row had lights on, illuminating the darkness, all the houses on the other side were pitch black.

“That’s the electric,” she explained. "It often goes off in the evening, more or less randomly. At some point it’ll turn off on this side, too.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. The electricity never goes off on the base, does it.”

“Nope.”

Rey chuckled humorlessly. “That’s typical. Anyway, the houses. People moved into some of them - squatters, I guess you might call them - and some of them were okay and stuck around, but other houses just stayed empty. Over the course of a few years we took down the fences, started planting vegetables and fruit, brought in some animals. You saw, I have chickens, and here are Maz’s bee houses.”

Rey’s neighbor had always had a strange sense of humor, and indeed her beehives were built to look like the houses on the street - narrow things, with windows at the apex of the pointed roof.

“Maz!” Ben exclaimed. “Maz Kanata? Is she still alive?”

Rey led them towards the vegetable garden that dominated the area behind the next three houses. 

“That’s right, you would have known her. She’s not, I’m afraid, she died last May. I knew her well; she was really good friends with Kiki up to the end of her life.” Rey ran a hand along the trellis that the winter squashes were busy growing up. The large leaves were cool against her fingers. They were dry, but she knew they would be covered with dew before the sun came up in the morning.

Ben stepped up next to her. She could feel him, the heat radiating off him in the cool darkness, although he did not touch her.

"They were always good friends. Maz was a pretty interesting lady, when I knew her."

Rey stroked the edge of a leaf with the tip of her finger.

"I wish she was still alive,” Rey murmured. “She was suffocating after Kiki died. My only family on Earth was dead and I was just a kid and it was overwhelming. I just wanted to be alone and she’d come over and want to talk to me. I started spending more time at school, which was probably good for my grades but I know it hurt her at the time. She’d just lost her best friend, and I was too young and immature to understand that maybe she needed me more than I needed her.”

“That’s tough.”

“It was. Anyway, we worked it out, and became very close over the years. But then when the news came out that you were back I missed her so much, just wished she was here, because she would have been the perfect person to talk to about it. It was just such a shock, you know."

"If you ever feel like talking about it, I'm here."

Ben's voice was quiet and soft, as though he was speaking to a feral kitten he didn't want to frighten away. Rey turned around and looked up into his face. The expression on his face reflected both hope and fear; exactly how she felt. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. 

“Thanks, Ben. With Maz gone, I just feel so alone.”

He leaned forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"You don't have to be alone, Rey."

She answered him without thinking. "Neither do you."

Ben was very close, and she thought about kissing him. He was so tall, she would have to stand on her toes, lean forward, and he would need to lean down to meet her. She could put her hand around the back of his neck, push her fingers through his hair while she was at it, pull him down just enough that her lips could touch his. She wondered what that would feel like, his mouth pressed against hers. How his breath would feel, how it would smell. Would he open his mouth? How would his tongue feel, sliding against hers? What would he taste like? Would he pull her body against his, holding her close? Or would he reject her? Would he think about Kira? 

“Rey?” His voice, concerned, interrupted her reverie. “Are you feeling all right?”

She shook her head, and shame curled hot in her belly. “Sorry, I spaced out for a minute there. I’m cold, let’s go inside.” Without waiting for a reply she scootched past him and hurried back to the house. 

Rey invited Ben to look around the house again but he declined, so instead they sat together in the kitchen and chatted about everything and nothing. Eventually it was time for him to return to the base. She insisted that it was too late for him to walk, so he followed her out to the garage to get the motorcycle.

The small garage was tucked around the side of the house. Rey kept her own bike right at the front and maintained a path through the boxes and old equipment to the back of the garage, where a row of cabinets topped by a chipped linoleum counter served as a makeshift workshop. The electricity in the garage hadn’t worked in years, so Rey took the flashlight she kept on a shelf by the garage door to illuminate her path back to the cabinets, where she was hoping there might be an extra helmet that would fit Ben’s head.

“Tell me about your bike,” Ben said as he examined it. Rey crouched by the cabinets and started digging. She wasn’t sure if she had a helmet, but this space, like Kira’s bedroom and the attic and basement hadn’t been cleared out since she died; who knew what lurked at the back of the garage.

“It’s a Ducati Monster M900, what they call a naked superbike,” Rey shouted back at him. Ben’s silence spoke volumes. “They evolved from Moto GP bikes, so it's pretty much a racing engine in a street frame."

“Yeah, I can see that now.” Rey looked up from where she crouched. Ben had come in to stand close to her; she was surprised to see him so close. “It’s a nice bike. Looks fast.”

“Thanks,” she said, reaching back into the cabinet. “Ah ha! Here you go.” She pulled out a helmet - old, but in one piece, and hopefully big enough to fit his head. She handed it to him and he stared down at it and looked affronted.

“Are you kidding me? I’m not wearing that.”

“What, afraid it’ll ruin your hair?” She teased, and shoved it into his hands. “It’ll keep you from getting killed if we crash, and I’m not letting you get on the bike without it. Okay?”

He frowned, but he nodded and accepted the helmet. Rey shined the light over the detritus that filled the rest of the space, and focused it on a dark lump by the wall. She’d almost forgotten it was there.

“Hey, Ben, there’s something over there you might be interested in.”

Ben glanced over and his face brightened. He smiled, that goofy smile, familiar from the old photographs, and Rey’s stomach turned a flip.

“Hey, that’s my bike!” Rey stood back but kept the light high as he pushed aside boxes and stepped over spare engines and parts to make his way towards the wall, where a black, bike-shaped cover lurked beside a stack of orange crates. Rey was curious as he lifted off the cover and exposed the black metal beneath. The chrome shone dimly in the light of her torch, and she took a few steps closer, following in his wake. 

“Wow,” she murmured. He crouched down and poked into the exposed engine, tucked under the seat. “I’ve never had a good look at it. Kiki would never let me touch it, and I haven’t. It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice muffled in the guts of the bike. “Can I have your light?” She passed it to him and watched as he continued to poke and prod. After a few moments he stood up and handed the light back to her. His eyes were shining. “This is my AJS 18S. I had it imported specially last... in, uh, ‘51. Near impossible to get it, but I did. Still looks exactly the same.”

“You should work on it, get it running,” Rey said, leading the way back to her cycle. “Then you can ride yourself.”

“Yeah, that would be good. I could ride it down to the beach. Kiki and I used to go down there on Sundays, watch the sunset.” He picked up the helmet from where he’d left it on the ground. He sighed and frowned, but put it on anyway.

“That sounds nice,” Rey replied, “you can come over tomorrow, get started on it?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I’d like that.” Rey wished she could see his eyes, but they were obscured by the faceshield, although in the moonlight she imagined his lips held a ghost of the smile he’d shown earlier, when he’d first seen the bike.

Rey nodded and straddled her bike, Ben close behind her. He was heavy and his weight affected the balance of the ride, but by the time they were three streets over Rey had gotten the hang of it. She tried not to think too hard about how nice Ben’s hands felt, wrapped around her waist, how his thighs were warm around her hips. It added a few minutes to the drive back to the base but she took the long road, the one that took them past the beach, just because she could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are digging the mutual pining / slowish-burn / mourning / finding love in the shadow of a deceased spouse of this story you might also like my story [Take This Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20369302), in which Rey is a widowed sheep farmer and Ben is her intern (their ages are switched).


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben begins his work on the motorcycle, and we meet another old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where we are:
> 
> Ben is coming to terms with being in a different time, and Rey is coming to terms with Ben
> 
> Ben has visited Rey's/Kira's/his house, and has reminded Rey that she's not alone
> 
> Rey found Ben's old motorcycle, which he wants to fix up
> 
> A warning that there is mention of a child being hit in this chapter
> 
> Cheers again to redbelles for the motorcycle assistance (all mess-ups are my own), to Melusine11 for the name of a new character, and to flypaper_brain for the beta! I also want to thank persimonne for her constant support and for getting so excited every time we talk about Space Ben / Captain Benmerica 💕💕💕

Ben returned the next day. He didn’t wait until seven, instead he hopped a ride over on the back of Finn’s bike just after lunch.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, holding the helmet out to Rey as he stood on the doorstep. “Finn was heading out anyway and he said he could give me a ride.”

“Finn, huh?” She took the helmet and turned it over. “He lives off base, what was he doing there for Sunday lunchtime?”

A flush spread across Ben’s cheeks up to his ears and she tried not to think about how delightful he looked when he was flustered.

“I think he was there all night,” he whispered, “with Hux.” Rey wasn't sure but she thought there might have been a dash of awe mixed in with the shock.

“Good for them,” Rey said with a smile, pressing the helmet back into his hands and assuring him that she didn’t mind at all that he was early.

Ben spent the afternoon tinkering with the motorcycle, checking the frame and the engine for wear and age. While he did that Rey cleaned out the garage, for the first time in as long as she could remember.

“The good news is that aside from one panel on the back the frame doesn’t have any rust,” Ben said that evening, over a supper of sausage and goat cheese flatbread, “and the engine itself appears to be in good condition. But everything else will need to be replaced - all the lines and cables, and the brake pads. There’s also some mold in the seat so I’ll need to replace that, too. And the tires, of course - I don’t want to be driving around on seventy-year-old rubber. This is an old bike, is it going to be an issue finding the parts?” He paused, shifted in his chair.

Rey took a sip of her beer - a rare treat, traded from her neighbor who lived three doors down - and swallowed the remnants of her flatbread.

“Probably not - everybody drives old bikes, and there’s definitely a market for parts. Seventy years old is rare but not unheard of. I know a guy - I bet we can figure something out.”

The next Saturday Ben came over after lunch - he'd gotten a lift from Finn again - and they rolled the AJS out into the chilly sunshine. Rey got a pad of paper and a pen, and wrote out a list as Ben poked and prodded and called out the names of all the bits and pieces he’d need to fix the bike. 

Ben finally stood up, stretched out his back and wiped his hands on a rag as Rey read the list out loud, just to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. When she was done Ben nodded and set down the rag.

“You say you know a guy? Somebody who has the parts we’ll need?”

Rey stretched her legs out in front of her and looked up at him. She liked how big he was, and how small he made her feel, down there on the ground. The sky was bright over his head, which made it difficult to see his expression, but she imagined he was smiling down at her.

“Yeah, he has a junkyard out on the edge of the city. There are a few others like him, but he’s the only one I trust. I used to do work for him a bit, right after Kiki died and I needed extra money. He was always kind to me.” She didn’t mention the other junk trader she worked for at the same time - the one who wasn’t so nice. She didn’t like thinking about him at all, and she hoped that she wouldn't have to deal with him.

“I, uh, don’t have any money,” Ben said, sounding embarrassed, and Rey stood up so she could see him better. He was rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand and staring at the dilapidated houses that lined the other side of the street. “At the base they give me whatever I need, and I haven’t had to purchase anything. Do you even _have_ money now?”

Rey hides a smile, tucks the folded list into the back pocket of her jeans, and leads Ben back into the garden behind the house.

“We have credits, like electronic money I guess. No more cash or coins. But the system for passing credits isn’t great, and a lot of people can’t or won’t accept them. Around here you can spend them in a few places - the real stores accept them, and on base of course.” She’s led him to the chicken coop, where one of the neighbor’s goats, a black animal with a white face, was bleating at the lead hen, who was puffed up on the other side of the wire, clucking her heart out. The other chickens were nowhere to be seen.

“Elvis!” Rey hollered at the animal, but it didn’t even look at her; instead, it danced on his hooves and shook its head, waving its horns around and bleating more loudly. The hen danced too, and started screeching. Rey sighed and grabbed the goat by the woven collar it wore around its neck, and the thing quieted immediately. Rey was amused to see that Ben stayed well back during the entire encounter.

“This is just Elvis,” she said, giving the animal a pat on its shoulder. “She’s okay, but sometimes she’ll get out and try to pick fights with the chickens.” She gestured back to the coop, where the lead hen was busy fluffing out her feathers, and the other hens were peeking out from the house. “You might say she gets them all shook up.” She giggled at her own joke; Ben looked at her a bit blankly. “Elvis?” She said. “Elvis Presley?”

“No, sorry,” he said with a little shrug. “Another thing that I missed.”

“Not a big deal. Just a singer. Musician. Made a couple of big albums before he took his family off to one of the new worlds. I suppose he’s still making music there.”

“Hey, Elvis,” Ben said, giving the nanny goat a wave.

Rey smiled and pointed at the boxes that hung around the outside of the house part of the coop.

“Ben, I need to take Elvis home, she’s just three doors down, while I do that can you see if there are any eggs in the nesting boxes? Just open the top there, it’s hinged. There’s a special box under there that you can put them in.”

She watched Ben pull out the egg box and open the top of the nesting boxes before she walked Elvis back home. It appeared that she’d managed to get the gate open - again - although she was the only one who had taken the opportunity to escape. The other two goats, Priscilla and Willie Nelson, bleated hello to Rey as she led their sister into the pen. She gave them each a scratch before leaving, locking the gate tightly behind her, and leaning a discarded log against it for good measure.

When she returned to the chicken coop Ben had just finished digging through the last of the straw, and he held out the box with eight perfect brown eggs in it with a grin.

“I found eggs! Some of them were hidden pretty well but I got them out.”

“Perfect! I have more in the house, we’ll make it a dozen. That should do.”

“Do for what?” Rey smiled again at Ben’s confused expression.

“For barter. Since most people can’t accept credits, we barter. Trade. I give you something I have for something you have that I want.”

“And you trade eggs?”

Rey nodded and headed towards the vegetable garden, Ben trailing along behind her. 

“Food, yeah. Eggs and vegetables. I sometimes trade work with my neighbors for their food, so today I have sausage and some cheese. I can bring that along, too. Also, the guy we’ll be meeting today is a little…” she paused, checking the winter squash and cutting the biggest one she could reach off the vine with the switchblade she keeps in her pocket, “he’s a little weird, I guess.” She rolled the squash out of the patch and crawled over to the next plot, where the latest harvest of kale was almost ready to go. “He has a son, a little kid, so sometimes all you need to do is be sweet to him and he’ll give you whatever you want.” She cut off two ripe heads of kale at the stem and set them next to the squash. She turned around to look up at Ben, who stood right behind her with the box of eggs still in his hands. “The kid likes kale.” She shrugged, in a _what can you do_ kind of way, and Ben laughed and stepped back so she could stand up.

Over the next thirty minutes they worked together to pack up the eggs - adding four more to make it a dozen - and loaded up the vegetables and a few other things into Rey’s sidecar. She double-checked everything, just to make sure, and while she did that she couldn’t help but notice that Ben had claimed her notepad and pen, and he was hard at work on something. 

“It’s time to go. What have you got there?”

He bit his lower lip and turned the pad around so it faced her. The drawing was rough, just a sketch, and it took her a moment to understand what it was. But once she did she couldn’t help the loud bark of a laugh that escaped her.

“Is that _The Wizard of Oz?_ ” She asked, reaching out a finger to touch the edge of the paper. “But is that you?”

“Yes,” Ben said, his cheeks positively flaming. “I’m the Scarecrow. You’re Dorothy; see, you have the basket. I put you in your regular clothes, I hope that works for you. And Toto-” 

By this point Rey was laughing hard, but she still managed to interrupt him. “Toto is Elvis! I love it! A little goat-doggy.” She grabbed the pad out of his hands so she could see it better, and she didn’t even care that she was making so much noise. He just stood there, watching her, but at least he was smiling, too. 

“Wow, that’s wonderful. I had no idea you were an artist.” Ben shrugged as he took the pad back and tucked it on top of the food in the sidecar. “What made you think of that?”

“You said your friend had a kid, I thought maybe he’d like a drawing. I guess people still know _The Wizard of Oz?_ ”

“Yeah, it’s a cultural touchstone. They show the movie a lot on television, and Kiki read me the books when I was little. They must still be in the house, somewhere, but I haven't seen them in a long time.”

“I remember those books,” Ben said, turning away from her and putting on his helmet. As before the faceshield obscured his eyes, although Rey thought she could still feel the weight of them on her. “They were mine - my favorites. Anyway, let’s go.”

Without another word they climbed onto Rey’s bike and headed out to the junkyard on the edge of the city.

* * *

Forty minutes later they pulled up in front of a low concrete building fronting a large area surrounded by a tall wooden fence; it had loops of razor wire lined along the top like an animal baring its teeth to protect its territory. There were no other vehicles on the street, although a number of metal horse heads on poles were lined up on the sidewalk outside the building. A worn wooden sign leaned beside the door, a cow skull with impressive curved horns hanging beside it. The sign was painted with _Mando & Son_; someone has added a couple of stick figures, one large and one small, next to each of the names. Rey rang the bell while Ben hung back by the bike.

“He probably won’t say much to you,” Rey called back to him, “but I think he’ll like you.” Kira and Mando had met when Rey was young; he’d thought Kira was a strange old lady but he’d heard a lot about Ben from her, and he’d admired her loyalty. Rey hoped that he’d heard the news about the returned mission because she really didn’t want to have to explain it to him.

She needn’t have worried. It took a few minutes for the door to open, but when it finally did she was nearly bowled over.

“Tía Rey!” A young boy flew out the open door and threw himself into Rey’s arms; he was small enough for her to pick up, his little legs crooked over her hip. He held her tight for a moment, then wriggled out of her grasp and bounced up and down on the broken sidewalk, gazing up at her with his huge dark eyes. “Where have you been? Papa helped me build a Rube Goldberg machine, do you know what that is? Can I show you? Please Rey.” While he chatted to Rey an older man with greying hair and wearing brown coveralls stood in the doorway, holding the door open with his foot.

“Give Rey some space, _mijo_ , I think you’ll have plenty of time to spend with her today,” he said to the boy, who stepped back, chastised. 

“Mando,” Rey stepped over to him and gave him a hug, which he returned with one arm. “I’m sorry it’s been a while, things have been a little weird.”

He chuckled quietly while they hugged. “Rita. I heard. But things are good?”

“Yeah, good,” she murmured, pulling away and turning towards Ben. But before she could say anything Mando was already calling over to him.

“Hello, you must be Ben Solo! I’m Din Djarin, and this is my son Kir, but everybody calls us Mando and Son.” He pointed at the sign, and Kir ran over and gestured at it like a farmer showing off a prize bull, which made Rey giggle. Ben walked over slowly and took Mando’s extended hand.

“I am Ben Solo,” he answered, and Rey was amused to see how the two men squeezed each other’s hands, sized each other up. There was a bit of tension, but it only lasted a moment before the older man relaxed and dropped his hand. 

“What can I do for you? I can make tea, if this is a visit for pleasure. Or I can make tea if it’s a business visit. Either way, we can have tea.”

“Papa’s fond of tea,” Kir explained, hopping from foot to foot, dark hair bouncing up to flash his ears with every jump. He hadn’t lost any of his energy since the last time Rey’d seen him, back at the end of the summer, and she hoped he wasn’t too much for Ben; she had no idea how he felt about children. But Rey was pleased to see Ben smile at Kir.

“I like tea, too,” Ben admitted.

“Tea would be great, Mando, thanks, but we’re hoping you can help us source some equipment so Ben can fix up his old bike.” She pulled the folded list out of her pocket and handed it to him. He glanced at it and waved them all inside. 

“An AJS 18S, eh? Classic. Come on in. Kir, help them carry their things. Rita, you can chain your bike up to one of the horses if you want to.”

Mando held the door open and Kir dug into the sidecar, pulling out as much as he could carry and waddling back into the building on unsteady feet.

“Why does he call you Rita?” Ben asked quietly, pulling out the squash, which had proved too heavy for the little boy.

“ _Rey-ita_ ,” she replied, but his blank look was back. “It’s Spanish, like a diminutive? He’s saying I’m little Rey, that he likes me. He calls Kir _Kirito_ when nobody is around to hear it.”

Ben watched as the boy slipped back out the door for another load. 

“What does Kir think of that?”

“He _hates_ it. But it’s cute.”

They giggled together as Ben helped Kir gather everything else out of the sidecar and carry it in while Rey locked the bike up tight. Mando waited for her and made sure the door was closed and locked behind her; it shut with a hearty _click_ , and he turned three additional latches and pushed through one bolt.

“It’s not likely that there’s anyone else around,” he said, taking her by the elbow and leading her back to where she knew the kitchen and other private rooms were located, “but it never hurts to be careful.”

By the time they reached the kitchen and the adjacent living room, Kir had seated Ben on a pillow in front of a wall that had been bare the last time she’d visited, but which was now covered by an amalgamation of plastic tubes and wooden slats, strings and wires, and colorful pieces of what Rey would charitably call trash. Kir was animatedly explaining something to Ben as he stood up on a chair on one end of the wall and dropped a red marble into the top of one of the tubes.

“What is that thing?” She asked Mando as he filled the kettle from the tap and set it on the gas hob.

“Rube Goldberg machine,” he grunted, lowering himself onto a stool and glancing over to where Kir was chasing another marble, this one black, across the concrete floor and howling with laughter. “He puts a marble in one end and it sets off a bunch of chain reactions until the end, when his teddy drops into that bucket.” He points across to a bucket close to Ben’s knee. “Still have some kinks to be worked out, but I’m amazed at what he can do.” He pulled the list back out and frowned at it, and she took that as her cue. She puttered around, pulling out mugs and tins of tea, and by the time the water boiled he’d tucked the pen behind his ear and called them all over. They sat around the counter - Kir running back and forth between his tea and the mess on the wall - and Mando went through the list with them.

“So that’s it,” he finally said, his half-drunk mug of tea cold by his elbow. “I know I can source everything except for that back panel. You’ll need to get that one made, and I’m afraid the only person around anymore who can do that kind of work is Unkar Plutt.”

At the sound of the man’s name Rey stiffened. Ben placed his hand on her back, and her cheeks heated as she stared at the worn linoleum counter.

“Who’s Plutt?” Ben asked, and Rey imagined that there was a touch of protectiveness in his voice, which only made her blush harder.

“Plutt’s mean!” Kir piped up from where he was arranging some pieces of wood along the bottom edge of his machine. “He hit me once for touching some spark plugs that weren’t even labeled _don’t touch_.”

“He _hit you-_ ” Rey shouted, surprised, pushing herself up to her feet, but Mando’s hand on her arm cut her short.

“Only once,” he said, the ghost of a smile on the corner of his lips. “Never again. Okay?”

Rey nodded, mollified, and settled back down on her stool.

“Plutt’s another junker,” Mando explained to Ben. “Unfortunately since the Fetts left he’s the only person around who does proper metalworking. I can give you what I have, but he can make you whatever you need.”

“But he’s awful, Ben, really awful,” Rey insisted, finally calm enough to look up into his face, “and I won’t do business with him.”

A part of Rey was afraid, afraid that Ben would need the panel for his bike enough that he would insist on going to Plutt anyway, but one glance in his eyes reassured her that this wasn’t the case. He looked angry, ready to pounce, and she found it strangely reassuring.

“Are there any other options?” Ben asked, looking back and forth between them. 

Mando shrugged. “I’ve heard there’s a new guy, on the other side of the city. I haven’t met him but I'll check him out for you. Meanwhile," Mando stood and headed towards the door, "I'll get you what I can."

Ben helped Mando gather what they could easily find while Rey stayed inside with Kir. He showed her his Rube Goldberg machine, but it kept misfiring and eventually he got so frustrated that Rey insisted they pause and do something else. She showed him the drawing that Ben had made earlier, and Kir laughed and rolled on the ground, then took out his own paper and pen and drew his own pictures. 

By the time the sun was low in the sky, flooding the little house with an orange glow, they had just finished packing up the sidecar and it was time to say goodbye. Kir hugged both Rey and Ben, and Mando waved from the doorway.

"I'll see what I can figure out about that panel, come back next Saturday and we'll see." They went inside, leaving Rey and Ben to put on their helmets and get settled on the bike.

"Kir is something else, isn't he," Ben said, with a glance back at the building.

"He'd make a great engineer." Rey sat on the bike and thrilled as the bike bounced lower from Ben sitting down behind her, his strong thighs pressing around her hips. She was already dreading the day his bike was finished, when she would no longer have rides as an excuse to be close to him.

“Do you want to have children?” The question, asked in Ben’s deep voice right behind her head, shocked her, and his hands on her shoulders a moment later shocked her even more, although she found it soothing, too. He followed up quickly in a mumble. “I’m sorry, that was probably an insensitive question, I’m still figuring out what I can ask and what I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” she reassured him, placing her right hand on her shoulder to lay it on his. He was wearing gloves, black leather ones, but even through the hide she could feel his warmth. He entwined his fingers lightly with hers and she smiled even though the question flustered her. She just didn’t know what the real answer was, though she did the best she could to make something up. “But to answer your question, no. Not here, anyway. I mean, things are okay right now but it’s just me. There aren't many children around any more; pretty much everybody who has kids has left already. Maybe it’s different in other places on Earth, but right now this city isn’t a great place to have children.”

She pulled her hand away so she could put on her helmet, and she could feel him behind her, doing the same thing. 

“What about Mando and Kir? They seem to be happy.”

It was hard for Rey to tell what Ben was thinking without his eyes there to help guide her. Why did he want to know? Was it for general information, or was he thinking about Rey having children? Most likely he was thinking about Kira, the children they never got to have, and that thought makes her chest feel tight. She swallowed through it.

“They are.”

“Why don’t they leave?”

“I don’t know if they can. Kir was abandoned by his family when they went off-world. He was sick - and small, you probably noticed that. He’s ten, I think, maybe eleven, but I know he’s a lot smaller than normal.” She pulled on her own gloves and wrapped her hands around the handlebars. “He wasn’t well enough to travel, so they left him behind, left him with Mando.”

Ben’s hands were back on her shoulders, and his fingers were digging in hard enough to hurt. She didn’t mind; it meant the story bothered him, and it was important to Rey that it bothered him. She wanted him to be bothered by it a lot.

“That’s one of the most horrible things I’ve ever heard.” His voice was tight, and Rey wondered if he might be crying. She’d seen him cry, the first time he’d visited her at her house - his house, the house he’d shared with Kira. She’d liked it; there was something very intimate about watching Ben Solo cry. Rey pushed that thought away almost as quickly as she had it.

“It’s pretty horrible, but it happens. They want kids in the colonies, but only healthy ones. And not all kids are as lucky as Kir.” She eyed the sun, which was growing lower every moment and would hit the horizon soon. “Anyway, we should get going, it’ll be dark by the time we get into the city. I’ll drop you off at the base on the way.” Rey didn’t want to drop him off, she wanted to invite him home, to make him dinner, but he’d already spent almost two whole days with her and he’d undoubtedly want some time to himself. Besides, she had work tomorrow, so she shouldn’t stay up too late.

“Okay,” Ben answered. “But can we take the road past the beach? We might be able to catch the sun setting into the ocean.”

Rey thought that sounded very nice, so she agreed before starting the engine, and took the turn toward the beach, where the sun, swollen and orange, looked like it was thinking about dipping its toes into the cool water of the Pacific.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have borrowed the name of Baby Yoda from Melusine11's [Akaanir ner ara at gar kar'ta](https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/54896236#main), in which Rey is picked up by Mando right after her parents sell her to Plutt and she grows up as his adopted daughter. His full name is _Kir'manir_ , which in Mando'a means to adopt or give a soul to someone.
> 
> Should I also admit that I know nothing about goats or chickens? It's true! If you are knowledgable and you have suggestions for how I can improve that bit of the story please don't hesitate to leave a comment here, or contact me on Twitter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben spend some time together at home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where we are:  
> Ben has been on Earth for a couple of months  
> Rey is waiting on her transfer  
> Rey and Ben are getting to be friends  
> Ben is starting to work on his bike  
> Things are going pretty well (except for that pesky asteroid)

The week after their first excursion to visit Mando and Kir Rey was informed that she’d be switching to night shift for the next quarter. She hadn’t really cared, until it occurred to her that the change meant no more after-lunch coffees with Ben and the others. That realization made her chest feel tight and a brief flash of shame had warmed her cheeks.

“But why?” Ben asked her, frowning, as she hooked the sidecar up to her bike in preparation for their trip out to Mando’s to pick up what they’d need for Ben’s bike.

“There are going to be eight ships launching in the next month, heading for three different new worlds, and as you know one of our main tasks is to track them until they hit the hyperspace lanes.”

“Okay.” 

“So Poe, Rose, Kay, and me - we’re the A team. There are two other teams, B and C - headed up by Mitaka and Phasma, if you know them - and we rotate eight hour shifts to ensure twenty-four hour coverage. We’ve been working the eight to four shift, but now they’re moving us to midnight to eight.”

“Ain't that a bite,” Ben said, shaking his head as Rey finished and stood up.

“What?” she said with a laugh, tossing the wrench into the sidecar on top of the bags of kale and boxes of eggs. “What is that old man slang?”

He blushed deeply, all the way to the tips of his ears, but put on his helmet quickly to cover it up. “It just means that’s a shame, that’s all. I won’t say it again.”

“Hey now, I was just teasing. I like it when you talk like that. Anyway, my secondary project is to discover the theorized shorter hyperspace lanes, and the tracking work is helpful for that, too. It's been a while since we had so many ships launching at once, so it's important to take advantage.”

"Shorter hyperspace lanes. How short?"

She shrugged and bounced the helmet in her palms. "Hard to say for sure, but theoretically? We could have immediate travel, door to door."

"Teleportation. That would be amazing. But dangerous."

"Not exactly, but it would function like teleportation. It could revolutionize travel."

"It could make it possible to travel back and forth. Right?"

Of the problems with the current situation Rey felt that there were two that were the most damaging. Because of the great distances between Earth and the new worlds it took years for radio waves to travel, and although people had been able to take advantage of the hyperspace lanes for travel, they hadn't figured out how to use them for communication, or if it was even possible. Additionally, the immense number of resources it took to send even one ship made travel back to Earth essentially impossible; in the sixty years that people had been moving off-planet, there had never been a return trip.

"Theoretically." She hated thinking about it, though, because it reminded her of her mom, and her sister.

She got on the bike and felt the usual thrill as he climbed on behind her. “It is too bad, though. No more after-lunch coffees.” They’d only done it a few times, but she’d enjoyed spending a bit of time with Ben and the others. It had even been nice to get to know Finn again in a different context. She thought, perhaps, they might even become friends. 

“I’ll miss it too, but I guess we’ll be seeing enough of each other on the weekends.” Rey tried to read something into his words, or the tone of his voice, but there was nothing. She really hated not being able to look into his face; his face told her so much more than his voice ever could. 

“Have you heard any more about your transfer?” 

Rey was putting on her helmet when Ben asked the question, and that gave her a moment to contain her surprise. Her transfer was a thing she normally thought about a lot - every day - and which she bugged Captain Canady about regularly. But she hadn’t thought about it in… she wasn’t sure how long it had been. Days, perhaps. A week. Weeks?

“No news,” she replied, turning on the fuel petcock and pulling out the choke. “It’s been a while since I last talked to the Captain about it, but he’d let me know if there was an update on my status, I’m sure.”

Ben hummed, and Rey wished she could see his face.

“What about you?” She asked, toying with the little alien made of scrap attached to her keychain hanging out of the ignition. “Have you thought about applying for a transfer? I’m sure with your status you’d get moved to the front of the queue.”

“Are you joking?” Ben laughs, but Rey is certain there’s an undertone of bitterness to it. “I just got back. I’m not leaving Earth again, no way.”

Rey nodded and squeezed the clutch as she pushed the start button, and the engine fired up, making further discussion difficult if not impossible. Rey was okay with that. They pulled out of the driveway and made their way down the street, ducking potholes as they went, Rey trying to make sense of the way Ben’s reply to her question made her stomach tie in knots.

* * *

They got all the parts that Ben needed - Mando had been able to source the back panel from the new metalworker after all.

“Calls herself _The Armorer,_ very fancy,” he’d told them as he’d accepted their gifts and helped load the pieces into the sidecar, securing it with rope, but Rey could tell from the way his eyes shone that the woman had impressed him. The panel she’d made was perfect, so Rey and Ben didn’t have any complaints, and when they’d asked about payment he waved them off. “Don’t worry, I made the trade for you, we’re even.”

“And you brought more kale!” Kir danced around on the sidewalk as Ben and Rey prepared for the ride home.

“We’ll bring you kale every time we visit, I promise,” Rey said, giving him a squeeze. He glowed, and reached up to wrap his little arms around her neck.

“Come back soon,” he whispered, and pulled back so he could look into her eyes. His eyes, as always, were near-black and shining. “I miss you when you’re away.”

“I miss you too, Kirito,” she said softly, kissing his cheek. 

He didn’t even complain about her use of his nickname.

As soon as they got back to the house Ben got to work dismantling his bike, a process that would take a few days considering he was taking apart both the engine and the electrical system - just in case. While he did that Rey kept herself busy doing her usual weekend chores - checking the garden and the bees, feeding the chickens, baking bread. They only paused to eat a late lunch, which they ate together at the kitchen table. Despite November’s quick approach the day was warm, and they left the window open while they ate. Ben talked about his bike and Rey listened, enjoying the sound of his voice, the cluck of the chickens and the soft bleating of the goats further down the yard. One of the neighbors shouted, a dog barked, and the chill breeze blew in through the window and played against the soft, dark hairs that dusted Ben’s shoulder. It felt good, domestic, and Rey closed her eyes and thought about how different things could be, if only.

“Are you feeling okay?” Ben asked, the scrape of his chair against the floor announcing his eventual departure.

“I’m fine,” she answered, watching his back as he washed his plate in the sink. “Just a little tired.”

“You’re anticipating the shift change, aren’t you,” he said, turning his head so he could just glance her over his shoulder. “I remember that. It’s a pain, but you’ll be used to it in about a week.”

Rey wasn’t worried about the shift change; she hadn’t been thinking about it at all. “You’re right,” she muttered, lifting her glass of water to finish it off. “It’ll be fine.”

* * *

Rey missed seeing Ben during the week, but on the weekend, he was hers.

He wasn’t hers; she knew that. He was friendly, that was all. He’d come over every Saturday or Sunday, catch a ride with Finn or walk, if it wasn’t too cold, to slowly clean every piece of the bike and reassemble it, make it whole again. Some days Rey would help, others she would do work in the house, or in the garden, or sometimes she would just watch. Other days they would get distracted, and work on the bike would just have to wait. There was an old checkerboard in the living room they’d play sometimes - neither of them suited for chess - or they’d watch the old television. There was only one official station which played old movies - some of them good, most of them not - but pirate stations would pop up occasionally, guys in their basements being creative and funny. They’d play, or watch, and they’d talk. They talked about bikes, and books, and Rey's work, and gardening; they talked about everything except for Kira, and each other. They hadn’t talked about her since the night they pulled Ben’s bike out of the garage, and Rey wasn’t sure how to bring her up, or even if she wanted to. But she knew that Ben thought about her. She saw it in the way he tenderly ran his fingers over the pieces of his bike, how he glanced around the kitchen when her back was turned, how his eyes turned to the stairs to the second floor but he never made a move to go up there. It had been the house he and Kira shared, after all, full of memories. Rey figured he thought about Kira all the time, constantly. That was fine, understandable. But after spending so many years alone, it was nice to have company. She liked having him there.

The third weekend, during a lull on Sunday afternoon, Rey mentioned the box of vinyl records in the basement that she’d found when she was looking for clothes to pack for Ben, and he’d insisted that they pull them out.

“But there’s nothing to play them on!” Rey declared, as she led him down the stairs into Kira’s old office. 

“We’ll figure something out,” Ben said, flashing that crooked smile - the one she knew from her childhood, and which was becoming more familiar as they spent more time together.

“I’m not sure which box they’re in,” she admitted as they reached the small hallway at the bottom of the stairs. “Coming down to find your things was the first time I’d been down here since… well, a long time, anyway. And I wasn’t really paying attention, either.” Rey was afraid she was babbling, but she wasn’t sure Ben was paying attention to her anyway. He stood and gazed at the wooden door, working his jaw. Rey reached past him and pushed the door open.

Ben paused in the doorway, and Rey scooted past him and stepped across the crowded space to look for the box.

“Well, shit,” she heard him murmur, as she moved the boxes of clothes aside to find the one she was looking for. When she turned around Ben was standing at Kira’s desk, staring at the star charts that hung on the walls, and which covered the desktop. 

“It’s the path to Proxima Centauri,” he said, pointing to one of the charts, a red paper arrow stuck to it mirroring his finger. 

“Yeah.” Rey jerked her chin, since she didn’t have use of her hands. “One of Kiki’s theories - the one she thought was probably closest to being correct - is that the hyperspace lane selected for the mission ran into a wormhole somewhere around that arrow, held you there, and I guess it eventually spit you out.”

Ben hummed, his finger tracing a pencil-written note just beneath the arrow. 

“She was right, of course.” The corner of his mouth turned up sadly. “At least that’s what we think happened.” This small comment grabbed her attention and she waited for him to proceed. Rey knew that once they were through debriefing and Finn was satisfied with their rehabilitation, all three of the Proxima Centauri mission members had been assigned to investigate their own disappearance. She only knew this because Captain Canady had mentioned it to her; Ben hadn’t said anything about it and she hadn’t asked. This was the first time he’d mentioned it. “Her records at the base have been really helpful for us; I didn’t know there were more here in the house.”

“There’s a lot here,” Rey said, shifting aside another box. “You can take it, if you want.”

He turned to look down at her, and something in his eyes made her heart skip a beat, but then it was gone.

“That’s okay,” he said, closing the space between them and taking the box of records out of her hands. “We have everything we need on base.”

He turned his back to her and led her back upstairs.

“What was it like?” Rey asked, immediately regretting asking the question. “Only if you’re comfortable talking about it, of course,” she followed up quickly. He walked into the living room and on the sofa, the box at his feet, and began flipping through them. She sat down next to him, being careful to leave several inches between them.

“What do you mean?” he asked, pulling out a record by some band called “The Royals” and setting it on the coffee table in front of them. 

“I mean, did you know something was wrong?”

He flipped past a few more records and pulled out another. 

“Not until we got back to Earth. The entire mission went as planned: we traveled to the entry point, entered the hyperspace lane - that was pretty cool - and when we reached the exit point we were exactly where we expected to be. We landed on Proxima Centauri b, we were there for six months, exactly as planned, ran our tests, and then we left. The trip back went exactly as planned, too.”

“And then you came home.”

He sighed and paused his hands, leaving one finger between two records to mark his place.

“Yes. We hailed the base and nobody answered. We feared the worst - nuclear war, at that point, was the worst - but when somebody finally replied and it was nobody we knew, and they couldn’t put us in touch with anyone we did know, we knew something was seriously wrong.”

Rey picked up the second record he’d pulled out - a song called “Rock the Joint” by Bill Haley and the Saddlemen. “How far out were you by then?”

“Four days out.” He stared past her shoulder, at the blank wall behind her. “It was hell.”

He was quiet after that, and Rey sat in silence and watched him go through the rest of the records, pulling one out every once in a while. 

“I wish we had something to play those on,” she finally said, picking up the stack of records and flipping through them.

Ben pulled out another record and handed it to her in silence, returning to the box again before speaking.

“What’s in the attic?” His voice was light, but Rey could tell there was something behind it; something that troubled him. And she knew exactly why.

“Oh God,” she said, clutching the records against her chest. “It’s full of more of your things, I guess. I don’t know what, I’ve never been up there. Kiki never took me up there and after she died…” She closed her eyes and swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m so sorry, I should have mentioned it earlier.”

“Hey, that’s okay.” Ben turned to face her and reached for the records, his hands brushing against hers, sending a warm thrill down her spine. His eyes held hers as he pulled them away from her. “I should have asked.” He grinned, a mischievous thing that brought out his dimples and made him look like a little boy. “Let’s go.”

He hopped up and ran out the door, with a quickness that shocked Rey. He was halfway up the stairs before she followed suit. She found him standing outside the door to the attic stairs, still caught up in whatever flight of fancy that had led him here to begin with. He was breathing heavily with the records clutched against his chest, and he stared at the door with eyes wide, muscles tense; he reminded her of a feral cat, deciding whether it wanted to fight or run away and hide. 

“Is it locked?” He whispered, his voice strained. 

Rey had no idea, so she reached out and gripped the knob. It turned easily, and the door swung towards them, creaking slightly as it opened, finally hitting the wall with a dull _thud_. Dim light filtered down to them from above, illuminating the top of the staircase with a soft glow.

Ben took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and went up the stairs. Rey followed closely behind him.

When she reached the top, the end of the handrail slippery under her sweating palm, Ben was standing still in the middle of the room. The attic was huge, it covered the entire expanse of the house below, but it was surprisingly bright. There was a single window at the far end of the room, and one just behind where Rey stood at the top of the stairs. She knew these windows well; they were exactly like the windows that fronted all the houses on the street, a cyclops eye nesting in the sharp crook of the roof. But there were also skylights, two on each sharply-inclined side, and they flooded the space with light. 

The room was full of dust, which wafted in clouds through the sunbeams that criss-crossed the room, stirred up by Ben’s feet as he crossed the room. It felt to Rey like walking into a sacred space, a church or a temple. Even considering the solemnity of the moment the room appeared comfortable, even cozy. The roof angled in from about three feet from the floor, which left space for furniture to line around the room. There were boxes, just a few, stacked near the staircase on both sides, but the rest of the wall on the right side was dominated by a long workbench covered in various projects. A model train set covered the bench closest to her, an oval of track surrounding a little town full of models with little gardens of grass and even flowers. Little white fences fronted the little houses and Rey’s chest felt tight. Ben set the records on the other side of the room, where a small sitting area containing a sofa and a couple of armchairs surrounded a low table, and came back to look at a section of the workbench further down the wall.

“Oh, gosh. It’s exactly the way I left it.”

Rey stepped carefully, pausing to sneeze once into the crook of her arm. When she got to Ben he was looking down at a piece of paper, which was covered by a thick layer of dust.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, really.” 

He moved aside to make room for her, and even through the dust Rey could tell that the paper was fine. But the paper wasn’t what made her gasp. That was the lettering; written with black in in long strokes, beautiful letters the likes of which Rey had only seen in old books about other old books. 

“It’s beautiful.” She picked it up and shook it to get some of the dust off, creating a great cloud that made them both cough. Then she angled it towards the sloping sunlight so she could see it better. “What is it?”

“Just some calligraphy practice.” He picked up a pen and set it down, then a little glass bottle, the contents long since dried into powder. “I dabbled in it, for fun. Something to occupy my time. Kiki had her space in the basement, and I had my space up here.” He picked up another bottle, this one filled with blue powder, and sighed. “I used to come up here in the evenings, write a little bit, listen to music. Read.”

While he dug through his calligraphy equipment, Rey’s attention was caught by another piece of paper, one that had been covered by the practice sheet. It was a poem, and she recognized it - her great-aunt had had a few collections of poetry around the house, old paperbacks, nothing fancy, but one of them had contained a few poems by someone named Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Rey didn’t know much about her except that she had a brother, and that they both wrote poems, but the poem on the paper was one from that book. Her heart sped up as she realized that it might have been copied from that very book.

> _How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.  
>  I love thee to the depth and breadth and height  
>  My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight  
>  For the ends of being and ideal grace.  
>  I love thee to the level of every day's  
>  Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.  
>  I love thee freely, as men strive for right.  
>  I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.  
>  I love thee with the passion put to use  
>  In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.  
>  I love thee with a love I seemed to lose  
>  With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,_

The writing cut off there, but Rey knew the last two lines by heart, and there was enough space for them on the paper; it simply wasn’t finished.

> _Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,  
>  I shall but love thee better after death._

It had been a gift for Kira, clearly. It was too perfect to be practice; the lines were straight, the letters written with a delicate precision that impressed Rey and made her chest ache. Maybe he’d intended to give it to her before he left, but when he didn’t have time to finish it he figured he would just give it to her when he returned home. She traced her fingers over the last two written lines and breathed slowly, willing herself to keep from sobbing. Rey set the practice paper back down on top of it, carefully lining it up so it covered the unmarred, dust-free square over the center of the poem, and pressed her fingers against the pendant nestled between her breasts; as usual, she found it to be immensely comforting.

It took a few moments to compose herself, but eventually she wiped her eyes with her sleeve and turned away from the workbench. Ben had moved to the other side of the room, where he was wiping dust off a waist-high wooden cabinet. 

“It’s my record player,” Ben explained, pulling down the door to the center cabinet to expose a turntable inside. “I unplugged it before I left but it’s plugged in now, and I only bought it in ‘48 so it’s quite new. Hopefully it’ll still work. Cross your fingers.” He turned one of the small knobs at the top front of the cabinet and nothing happened, but Ben seemed satisfied. He slid one of the records out of its paper sheath and gingerly threaded it on the center spindle. One more twist of a knob, and the turntable began to spin.

“On the beam,” Ben muttered under his breath, and Rey figured that was a good sign. He lifted the arm and placed the needle on the edge of the spinning disk, followed by a crackling buzz. Ben hopped to his feet and pumped his fist in the air. “Killer diller!” That time Rey couldn’t control the laugh that escaped her lips, but Ben didn’t seem to mind. He grinned at her, that crooked thing that she remembered so fondly from her childhood.

“Such a dame. You think I’m funny?”

He swaggered as he said it, and it reminded her so much of his old photo she laughed harder, and shook her head as the music started to play. It started with a couple of chords, and the singer started in immediately - something about tearing down the mailbox and ripping up the floor, smashing windows and knocking down the door, and Rey had to laugh again. She continued laughing as Ben scooted past her and started shaking around in the middle of the room.

“Are you going to rock this joint with me, Rey?” He asked, holding his hand out to her while he hopped from foot to foot.

Rey, embarrassed, wrapped her arms around herself instead. “I’ve never rocked a joint! I don’t know how. Can I just watch?”

“Oh, no you don’t.” He hopped closer and laid his hands on her arms, then stroked down them until he had both of her hands in his, keeping his hips moving the whole time. Rey tried very hard not to think about Ben and his hips. “Come on, I’ll teach you.”

“I need a teacher,” she replied, allowing him to tug her into the center of the room, which was clear of all furniture and was well-lit by the skylights. Rey’s cheeks were still hot with embarrassment, but the music was fun and almost demanded that she move along to it. 

“It’s easy. Just listen to the music and do what it tells you to. Watch me, try to do what I do.”

So Rey watched him - how his feet moved, how he hopped on his toes, how his hips twisted along to the music - it turned out to be impossible to avoid his hips, so she gave in and noted how they shifted, and tried to mimic the movement with her own body. As the seconds passed and she got more comfortable she loosened up; her body was used to the delicate work of the lab and the repetitive movements of gardening, she never listened to music for fun and she had never, ever danced. But it was good, it was _fun_. She closed her eyes and stopped caring how she looked, whether or not Ben was judging her, and she allowed the music to flow over her, and she moved the way she wanted to. 

Far too soon the song was over, the needle scratching in the center of the record. Rey opened her eyes to find Ben gazing at her with a grin.

“Was that fun?”

Her own smile hurt her cheeks. “So much fun. Can we do it again?”

He hopped back to the record player and put on another record. This song was faster, more jazzy with a piano and orchestra, and since Rey was feeling more relaxed she threw herself into it, moving her feet faster than she thought possible. Around the same time the lyrics hit, Ben took one of her hands, and then they were dancing together. She’d been afraid that it would feel strange - uncomfortable or forced - but instead it was nice. It felt right, dancing with Ben Solo in the attic filled with 70-year old dust, and Rey couldn't remember ever being happier. 

That song ended, and they collapsed to the floor, laughing again. Ben sighed and looked around them.

“It’s really filthy, I need to clean this place up. We’re probably going to get sick from breathing all this in.” He glanced at Rey with wide eyes. “Uh, is it okay? If I clean up? I can get all this out of your way, if you’d like. I don’t really have space in my dorm room, but-”

“Keep it here, it’s fine.” Rey said the words before she considered them, and they were followed by a brief moment of panic. “I mean, it’s fine either way. You can take whatever you want, and leave what you want.”

Ben pushed himself up and crossed his legs. The way the motes of dust washed around his head, illuminated by the sunlight, made Rey think of the halo that decorated the angel that Kiki had put on top of the Christmas tree when she was a child.

“If I take all this stuff out, you can use this space for something else,” Ben said sensibly. “I mean, it’s a pretty big room. You could have a nice workroom for yourself.”

“My workroom’s the garage, and the garden,” she answered rolling onto her back. She was lying directly under one of the skylights; the dome of the sky was so light blue it was almost white, and it felt very far away. “I wouldn’t use this anyway. You should keep it.”

She stayed where she was and listened as Ben stood and saved the record from the needle, which they’d left to crackle in the center of the disk.

“Did you and Kiki dance a lot?” Rey feared that every time she mentioned Kira to Ben it felt heavy, like dropping a stone into a quiet lake, especially after finding the calligraphy poem. She wanted to be able to talk to him about her great aunt - they’d both loved her, after all, they both had memories of her they could share - but bringing her up felt so heavy, and serious. So she hoped she just sounded curious, she kept her voice purposefully light. 

Ben snorted from across the room.

“Did you ever see Kira dance?”

Rey thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. Maybe when I was really little? But honestly I don’t remember.”

“There’s your answer.” His voice followed his footsteps back across the room; he was back at the table with the pens and inks, with the beautifully-written poem he’d intended as a gift for his wife. Rey shivered, even though the air under the skylight was warm. “Kira hated dancing. She’d do it sometimes, because I wanted to, if we had friends over, but mostly it was just me.”

“Well, I like dancing,” Rey said, and glanced over at him. He was staring at the table top, but looked up at her and smiled. 

“I like dancing with you,” he said, and something in the way he looked at her made her shiver again. “Now come on.” He stepped back over to her and pulled her up in a strong, smooth move that took her breath away. “I need to spend at least a little time today working on that engine, and you haven’t fed the chickens yet this afternoon. So let’s go be productive.”

They patted the dust off themselves on their way down the stairs, and Rey wondered if the disappointment she’d heard in Ben’s voice when he suggested leaving the attic was really there, or if it was just her imagination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your patience as I miss my self-imposed Sunday publication deadline for a second week! Maybe being stuck at home will help me be more productive (unfortunately I've just started another wip - [a Genderswapped Robin Hood AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23174518/chapters/55469575) \- so we'll see how that goes hahaha)
> 
> Nerdy endnotes:
> 
> On the beam = on the right track; cool  
> Killer diller = something that is the best, or amazing
> 
> First they listen to [Bill Haley & The Saddlemen - Rock The Joint](https://youtu.be/SVllEHxcNc8) then they listen to [Fats Domino - Mardi Gras in New Orleans](https://youtu.be/sEHZeoNonoQ). I watched [this video](https://youtu.be/tTdQj6f0UiU) to get an idea of how they might dance. Ben's record player is a 1948 Philco Tube Radio With Record Player, Model #48-1282.
> 
> Please drop a kudos or comment if you are so inclined, I love them all! xoxo


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben spend a little more time together, and we meet some other neighbors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where we are:  
> Things are moving along.  
> Rey and Ben are becoming friends  
> Memories of Kira keep popping up
> 
> This was supposed to be much more brief, a starting scene for what is now going to be the next chapter, but it felt complete on its own so I am publishing it now as its own chapter. Back to our regular Sunday update schedule! Oddly this change doesn't add to the overall chapter count (I would like to say it's magic but really it's because I miscounted when I set up the original doc and never changed the chapter count, oops)

It was a Wednesday evening in mid-November, just after sundown, when Rey met D.J. for the first time. She had just awakened and was having breakfast when he knocked on the door to the kitchen. She was expecting her neighbor to drop by with more goat cheese so she wasn’t really paying attention when she opened the door, and she almost shut the door right in his face. But he stood back, and held his hat in his hands; he appeared dirty and thin in the light that filtered out from the kitchen, and she felt sorry for him.

“What do you want?” She asked.

“I’m D.J. I’m, uh, livin’ over there,” he mumbled, pointing behind him. She glanced over his shoulder and could see that there was a small fire glowing over behind one of the empty houses on the other side. A new squatter, then. A new neighbor. She relaxed slightly even as she wrapped her hand around the large stick she kept leaning next to the door frame, just in case. “But I d-d-don’t got much food. I saw you have a garden here, an’ I was wonderin’ if I might take a bit. Just a squash, that’s all.”

Rey had more squash than she needed, and she did feel bad for him. It was cold at night, and to be both cold and hungry was too much.

“Sure,” she said. “You can have a squash. I have some bread, too, if you’d like some.”

“Yes ma’am! I would l-l-love some bread, ma’am.”

“Just Rey,” she insisted, and D.J. gave her a sharp grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“Thank you, R- uh, Rey.” 

She excused herself and shut the door, feeling bad for him but also wishing she didn’t have to deal with him. She returned a moment later with half a loaf of her hearty wheat bread wrapped in a cloth, and he gave her a little salute before prowling over towards the patch of squashes which grew in the corner of her garden. She closed the door behind her, hoping that he would stay away.

Of course he didn’t. 

When Rey arrived home from work the next morning there was no sign of D.J., although the charred remnants of his fire were still smoking in the small pit behind the house. He’d let the fire burn all night, apparently, and a burst of hot anger bloomed in Rey’s chest. Open fires were dangerous even when they had oversight, but leaving one to burn unattended was unbelievably reckless. Three years before a fire had burned through a row of houses a few streets over during an extended blackout, killing several people and leaving many more homeless. They’d been taken care of - Rey herself had allowed a couple of women to sleep in the living room for a few weeks until they moved into one of the abandoned houses on the other side of the garden - but it had been a terrible few months, and the carcasses of the houses were still there, picked through and looming over the neighborhood like ancient ruins. She was going to say something to him the next time she saw him - although she still didn’t want to see him again.

There were fewer eggs than usual, but Rey tried not to think too much of it. Maybe the chickens had a rough time the day before; it didn’t mean anything. But she did take the rare precaution of digging out some padlocks and locking up the nesting boxes. She hated doing it, because sometimes her neighbor Chewie would come over and take a couple during the day, but she promised herself she’d bring him some later, after she got some sleep.

So that’s what she did. When she awoke later that afternoon she unlocked one of the nesting boxes and picked out three eggs - carefully locking the box behind her - and carried them down to where Chewie lived with his goats. The nanny goats - Elvis, Priscilla, and Willie Nelson - were hanging out as usual in their pen, and the buck - called Dolly Parton, for reasons only Chewie understood - had finally returned from his extended adventure in the woods and was back in his own pen on the opposite side of the property. All four of them bleated greetings at her as she walked by and knocked on Chewie’s back door.

Chewie answered the door with a grunt, and pulled Rey into his arms before she even had a chance to greet him. She laughed and hugged him back, being careful with the eggs in her hand. Chewie was a big guy - bigger than Ben, big like a bear was big - and hairy like a bear, too. He stank of body odor and weed and she couldn’t even bring herself to be mad about it.

“You doin’ okay?” he grunted, finally letting her go and leading her into his kitchen. His house had once had the exact same layout as Rey’s house, but at some point he’d knocked down the wall between his kitchen and living room, resulting in one long, narrow room that he mostly used as a workshop. “You meet the new guy?”

Rey nodded and handed him the eggs. “You mean D.J.? He stopped by last night and asked for a squash. I gave him some bread, too.”

Chewie grunted and carefully placed the eggs in a dish on a shelf. “You’re too fuckin’ kind. I bet he took some of your eggs too, didn’t he.”

“Yeah, I think so. That’s why I locked the nesting boxes.”

“I figured. He’s bad news.” Chewie counted on his fingers. “Only arrived yesterday and he’s stolen your eggs, I caught him sneaking around the pen this afternoon, and Miss Havens down at the other end found him digging in her flowers; not sure what that was about. She had to chase him away with a broom. Oh! And, I’m pretty sure he pulled some leaves off one of my plants, too.” He nodded at the spliff burning in the fancy crystal ashtray he kept on the windowsill over the sink. “I’m having a little to calm myself down at the end of a long day, you want some?’

Rey sighed. “No thanks, I’m good. I have to work tonight. You know, he left his fire burning all night, it was still smoking when I got up this morning.”

Chewie growled and took a long hit off the spliff. “Goddammit. Motherfucker.”

“You know the code,” Rey shrugged. “Unless we actually catch him in the act we can’t ask him to leave. I don’t know if he stole my eggs; could have just been a bad night for the chickens. You don’t know if he stole your leaves. And I did give him food.”

“Well I don’t trust him,” Chewie grunted, tugging on his beard. “You be careful. Still got your stick?”

“Yeah, I have the stick. By the door, as always.”

“Did I tell you about the time your auntie chased off a squatter she found trying to steal honey in the middle of the night?”

Rey knew the story well, but it was a fun story - from the mysterious time between Ben’s disappearance and Rey’s entry into Kira’s life - so she waited patiently while Chewie rambled aimlessly through the events - which featured surprise reinforcement by Maz with a shotgun. The altercation had apparently been loud enough that everybody on the block came out to observe.

“They had it under control, though, so we just watched,” Chewie said with a chuckle. “That was quite an exciting night.”

While he told the story Rey leaned against the table and crossed her arms, and when he finished she couldn’t help but chuckle.

“She was really something.”

“Yeah, she was,” Chewie said, taking one last hit off the spliff and crushing it amongst the other burned ends in the bottom of the crystal tray. “How’s her man doing? I’ve seen him over there, working on that bike.”

Rey winced at hearing Ben referred to like that, and she hoped Chewie didn’t notice - she had no right to feel bad about it. Ben was Kira’s husband, after all. 

“He’s good, yeah,” she said. “Has the thing all taken apart, he’s working on cleaning it now. We got all the parts he needs from Mando so he should be able to start putting it back together soon.”

“That’s real good, real good. Having his own bike’ll be good for him. A little bit a’ freedom never hurt a man. Oh! I have something for you.” He rolled around and reached into the icebox, and came out with a round bundle of cloth that was dwarfed by his palm. “Little bit of cheese, just like I promised.”

“Oh Chewie, perfect, thank you,” she said, plucking it from his hand and giving it a sniff. “Say thanks to the goats for me.”

He laughed, a deep, booming thing that was almost strong enough to shake the house itself. She always said the same thing when he gave her cheese, and it always made him laugh hard - even when he _wasn’t_ stoned out of his mind. She gave him a hug, and he kissed the top of her head, and she said thanks to the goats herself on her way past the pen.

D.J. was still nowhere to be seen, and Rey was happy about that.

* * *

She didn’t see D.J again until Saturday morning. She knew he was around - the scent of his fire lingered in the garden area in the morning, and a few more of her squashes and a head or two of kale had disappeared. It could have been some other neighbor, although they all knew to ask before harvesting and usually did. She’d kept the nesting boxes locked since that first day, but she thought one of them looked like an attempt had been made to break it and the chickens themselves were a bit more jittery than usual - but again, nothing she could prove.

Hux had moved out of the base and into Finn’s apartment a couple of weeks earlier, so for the past two weeks Rey had taken to picking Ben up at his apartment after her overnight shift, before she left the base. On that particular morning Ben greeted her at the door wearing an apron over his soft black sweater, carrying a spatula and sporting a brilliant smile. His hair was damp, and he smelled good, like something earthy and fresh.

“You’re just in time, come on in!” She followed him to the kitchen, where the table was set for two - he’d even placed a little vase with a couple of nice orange leaves in the center - and a delicious aroma filled the air.

“Oh my God,” she moaned, falling into the chair that faced the stove. “What is this?”

He grinned at her over his shoulder. “I figured you’d be hungry after a long night of work, so I thought I’d make you breakfast. And to thank you for how kind you’ve been to me, welcoming me back and helping me get my bearings,” he added shyly.

“It’s no problem,” Rey said, and she meant it. “I like having you around.” It was more than that - she _loved_ having him around. She lived for the weekends when he would busy himself with the bike, out in the cold, and she’d keep him company, and then he’d come in and they’d do puzzles or play checkers or dance in the attic. He’d even figured out how to make ink out of vinegar and charcoal and had started practicing his calligraphy again. The Browning poem, however, had disappeared - Rey had gone looking for it one morning the previous week after arriving home from work, but she’d immediately felt terribly guilty about invading his space and hadn’t returned without him.

“I like being around.” He grinned at her as he set a plate in front of her - it was piled with pancakes and scrambled eggs and bacon, and he even had a little bottle of maple syrup.

“Syrup!” Rey cried, pouring a generous amount over everything on her plate. “Where did you get it?”

“That’s a secret.” He winked at her as he sat down with his own food and helped himself to some syrup, too.

By the time they finally got to the house it was almost 11am. They’d taken their time eating, and then Rey’s bike had choked out about a mile away - at the bottom of the hill, of course - and they’d taken turns pushing it the rest of the way. As they walked she told Ben about her new neighbor, and her concerns about him, and he reassured her that he was there if she needed any help.

Rey was tired, but she wanted to spend as much time with Ben as possible before she had to go to sleep, so she went straight to the garage and got to work diagnosing the problem with her bike. She was pretty sure it was something with the carburetor, and she hoped that it was just the connection and not something that would involve a new part. Ben, meanwhile, said he had to use the bathroom, and went into the house through the front door. About five minutes later she heard his voice shouting from around the back of the house, and very soon Chewie’s bellows joined him. She got up to see what the fuss was about, but before she’d rounded the corner of the garage D.J. pelted past her, holding his hat against his head to keep it from flying off. Ben was close behind, the infamous stick in his hand, yelling about respecting other people’s property and not taking advantage of the kindness of strangers.

Ben stopped at the street but D.J. kept running, all the way down the street, until he disappeared around the corner.

“What the hell?” Rey yelled, leaning down to pick up the wrench she’d dropped in surprise when D.J. had run by. Chewie had come around, too, and was laughing loudly, although Ben wasn’t laughing with him - he wasn’t amused at all. Rey thought he looked like he could kill someone, and she didn’t dislike it. Not at all - it made her feel warm, deep in her gut, and when he turned his attention to her and his expression softened and he threw the stick to the ground and ran up to her and pulled her into his arms - well. She liked that too. She wrapped her arms around his middle and lay her head on his shoulder, and rubbed his back until his heartbeat and breathing slowed down. He rubbed her back, too; she closed her eyes and pretended it meant something other than what she knew it meant.

“Are you okay?” Ben finally said, letting her go and stepping back. Chewie still stood at the corner of the garage, leaning his shoulder against the wall, grinning at them. Rey looked at the ground to avoid looking into his eyes, but she was sure he noticed the way her face flushed.

“Yeah, I’m fine, nothing happened to me, he just ran past me. What the hell happened?”

“I saw him when I came out the kitchen door, he was trying to break into the chicken coop.”

“Yeah, I saw it too,” Chewie added. “Yer man started yelling and I came out and there he was, and then he got that stick and chased ‘em, and I chased ‘em too.” 

“I guess he’s gone, then,” Rey said, pointedly ignoring Chewie’s _yer man_ and walking slowly back to her bike, crouching down at the far side so she could still see the other two. 

“What if he comes back?” Ben asked as he picked up the stick and gave it a twirl. 

“He won’t come back,” Chewie answered. “I’m Chewie by the way, I live down at the end.”

“Ben Solo,” Ben said, shaking his outstretched hand. “You’re the one with the goats?”

Chewie laughed hard. “That’s me, the crazy one with the goats. You met ‘em?”

“I met Elvis the other week, she was over bothering the chickens.”

“Yup, she likes to do that, get out and wreak a little havoc. But she’s a good girl.” Chewie shoved his hands into the pockets of his overalls and rolled back and forth from his toes to his heels.

Ben said something softly to Chewie, and Rey was very sure that he didn’t mean for her to hear him, but she had very good hearing and she heard him anyway. 

“How do you know he won’t come back?”

It wouldn’t have mattered in any case, because it was almost impossible for Chewie to be quiet, so she heard his reply.

“It’s the code,” the older man said. “You can stay in a place unless you’re caught stealing. If you’re caught, you’re out, or worse.”

“Okay. What’s worse?”

Chewie set his hand on Ben’s shoulder and squeezed. “Exactly what you think it is. He knows it, and he won’t be coming back.” Then he leaned down and whispered something into Ben’s ear that Rey couldn’t hear, but she could guess that it was about her. She blushed harder, frustrated, and returned to focusing on the cable that connected the choke to the carburetor. A minute later Chewie left, shouting his goodbye, and Ben came over and kneeled next to her.

“Are you okay?” 

She snorted. “I’m fine, I’m not a child. I grew up in this world and I live in this world and I know how to take care of myself.”

“I don’t think you’re a child,” he answered sharply. He ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath and continued more softly. “I know you can take care of yourself, but I’m here too, right?” 

Rey remembered the first night he came to the house, when they stood by the garden and he’d told her that she didn’t have to be alone, and she’d said that he didn’t have to be alone either. And they weren’t alone - he was there for her, he’d proven that in dozens of small ways before today. And yes, maybe he wasn’t there for her in all the ways she wanted him to be - he wasn’t going to kiss her or take her to bed the way she fantasized about as she lay in bed with sunlight peeking in around her curtains, waiting for sleep to take her - but he was clearly her friend. She could let him be her friend.

“I know,” she said. “I’m here, too.”

He put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze, and then he stood up and got to work on his own bike. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep forgetting that I have a [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/QueenOfCarrotFlowers), so if you're shy and you don't want to leave a comment or Tweet at me, you can send me a note there.
> 
> Regular reminder that flypaper_brain is the best beta a writer could ask for <3

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy the story! I am having a great time writing it. Don't hesitate to leave a comment or kudos, they make me happy 🚀🚀🚀 Also I am @FlowerOfCarrots on Twitter if you want to say hi there!
> 
> Edit: Keep yourself healthy, wash your hands! Here is a handy chart (with lyrics from the Queen song 39, which this story is based on), hang it in your bathroom if you need guidance.


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